Super Smash Saga!
by PikaYoshiGirl
Summary: How did the eight original smashers get together in the first place? Did they go on an adventure to stop an evil legion from killing them? You bet!...Wait, that wasn't in the tournament plans! Takes place before the first SSB game.
1. Prologue & Chapter 1

(A/N) Hey again! You might recognize me around the SSB fic section- or, maybe not- for a few stories I wrote about Pikachu/Yoshi.

Well, I'm gonna challenge myself. This time, I'm writing for all eight of the original smashers! (Even though there's twelve smashers in SSB, this fic focuses around the eight main ones you start the game with, not the unlockables.)

You might be wondering why I'm doing this, and I have an answer! This is based off of a fanfic I had read on a SSB website about six years ago...it was the first fanfic I ever read. I was only ten years old when I read it, and I _still_ think it's good. That very story was the one that inspired me to want to write my own fics! It's not on this website, either. It took me days to find that story through google searches for SSB stories, and when I found it, I knew it was the perfect match for me. Since then, I fell in love with fanfiction.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in this story; they either belong to Nintendo or Rare. There's not going to be any surprise original characters here. I like to stay close to the games while making up a realistic story to go along with SSB!

* * *

**Part 1: The Alliance**

.:Prologue: The Eight Heroes:.

-oOo-

The story of the eight heroes began a short time before the first SSB tournament was held, perhaps a little less than twenty years ago. At first, these heroes were just ordinary children when they were born. Sure, one of them was saved by a dinosaur on the run from a magical turtle-wizard, and two of the heroes' parents were murdered in cold blood by either a mad scientist or a space-dragon, but besides those events, their early days weren't too much to talk about.

Not all of them were human, either. Less than half of them were. A few were animal-like and could speak like humans, but some couldn't speak the human language at all; nobody could understand them except for the other members of The Eight, which eventually became an alliance known over the universe. No matter what the danger was, it seemed like nothing could ever defeat them.

This story starts with the first hero, the one who started it all. He's probably also the most well known...the one whom you know of as Mario 'Mario' of the Mushroom Kingdom.

* * *

.:Chapter 1: A Typical Day:.

-oOo-

The first hero was just a simple plumber, living in a not-so-simple world of floating blocks, two-legged turtles, and mushroom people. This land was known as none other than the Mushroom Kingdom. But the ruler of this kingdom, ironically, wasn't a mushroom person at all- she was one of Mario's closest friends, a human named Princess Peach. She didn't have many secret powers to defend herself like Mario did, so Mario occasionally had to go on near life-sacrificing missions to rescue her from the clutches of Bowser, the evil king of the Koopa Tribe. Today was going to be one of those occasions.

Back at his house, the plumber had just finished cooking up some pasta, and was now setting the table for himself and his brother. They were taking a break and celebrating the fact that Peach hadn't been kidnapped in weeks, and for once, it seemed like the Mushroom Kingdom was going through a time of peace: Mario was seemingly taking the first vacation of his life, and Luigi's broken leg (a result of falling off a ? block he was sitting on) was slowly recovering. Unfortunately, their lunch break was about to be ruined, as a Toad had practically crashed through their front door to tell the brothers the news: Peach had just been kidnapped.

Mario slammed a fist on the table in frustration. "Again-a? Why-a couldn't this have-a waited until later? My brother and I-a were just about to have-a lunch!"

The Toad shook with fear at the situation. "I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I just HAD to tell you! All the other Toads have either been captured or ran for their lives. The troops at the castle weren't strong enough to hold back Bowser and his army!"

The plumber in red shook his head with disgust. Of course Bowser was behind this! But why on earth did he have to kidnap Peach a hundred times a month? And the princess had just begun setting her longest record of not being kidnapped, too...

Luigi, however, looked thoughtful. "Mario, you go without me," he concluded. "I'll put the pasta in the fridge for later and make sure nobody invades our house. Since my leg's broken, I'd probably just slow you down...and you know Bowser's Castle like the back of your glove, anyway. Good luck saving Peach, Bro! I know you can do it!"

Mario agreed and clenched his fists to brace himself for the journey to his arch-enemy's castle. "Thanks-a, Luigi. I-a just wish this place wasn't up-a in arms all the time-a."

He was right. When had this land _never_ been under siege? As long as Bowser and his cronies were around, both kingdoms would always have their daily skirmishes. Bowser wasn't just an overgrown Koopa without a brain, either. He could actually perform magic in certain situations- he's had the power to transform the kings of seven different lands into plants or animals, and more recently, he sealed 120 power stars into paintings in Peach's castle, where Mario had to painstakingly find the majority of them in order to get into Bowser's domain and rescue Peach.

And even though Bowser usually fell into his own traps in the end, this time, Mario felt a little uneasy. Something told him that saving Peach this time wouldn't be so easy.

Luigi's voice snapped Mario out of his nervous state of mind. "Don't worry about anything, bro. Bowser always kidnaps Peach, and he'll be easy to beat, just like he's always been. It's not like Bowser ever plans out anything smart, right?"

Mario nodded, vowing to keep his mind off of thinking about Peach's sudden kidnapping too much. But something about Luigi's rhetoric question worried him...

-oOo-

The route Mario took to Bowser's Castle was like taking a walk through the park; Mario had known it for so long, he recognized every tree, rock, and patch of grass that dotted the road. An occasional Goomba would step out in front of him, but Mario would just chuck a fireball at them, ending their attempts of forming a blockade.

At the very end of the path was a grey warp pipe that was not-so-discreetly hidden behind a bush. Bowser unwittingly chose to put it there, in hopes that no intruders would ever find it. Only his troops knew it was there, and Mario, because he had seen Bowser go through it countless times before, and he was the only person brave enough to go through it in the first place. Only a lake, a forest, and bumpy plains hindered the path to the warp pipe. There weren't even any traps to avoid!

Mario planted his feet on top of the gloomy-looking pipe, slid through, and re-appeared outside Bowser's Castle, which looked completely unguarded. Seeing this, Mario's spirits lifted. "This is-a going to be easy!" the plumber exclaimed, sprinting across the castle's suspended bridge over a lava moat. Balling his fists, he decided to make a grand entrance by punching down the castle's front doors, causing both of them to fall down with a booming_ THUD._

Once the dust from the crash had cleared, Mario looked around the castle's foyer- surprisingly, there was no one around. Only a few torches hanging from the walls were his source of light, illuminating the gigantic spiral staircase at the end of the room.

"Mama mía! Since-a when did Bowser-a get a marble staircase?"

It definitely _did _look different from the rest of the castle's decor. While everything in the room was dark and musty, the white staircase stood out, as if it had just been built there to be a shortcut to the top of the tower.

Never looking before he leaped, Mario shrugged. "Oh well. Easier for me. Maybe it will-a lead me to the room Peach is-a in." He charged right up the stairs, feeling as if he were climbing a mountain. Since Bowser had built this for himself, each of the steps were taller than Mario. Finally reaching the throne room's doors, Mario gasped, regained his energetic composure, and pushed open the doors with force in his arms.

He was immediately greeted, not by Peach, but by the laughing of the exact creature he didn't want to see- Bowser. A humorous expression lined his jaw. "Hey, Mario! Great to see you again! Why so serious, huh?"

Mario sighed with annoyance, then did a double take. Bowser seemed to be in a suspiciously good mood...but at least he wasn't holding onto a weapon of some sorts. "You-a ruined my lunch break today, so you better-a put up a good-a fight!" Mario held up his fists, which were blazing with bright red flames. "Let's-a get this-a over with!"

Bowser put on a fake frown. "All right, fine! Geez, you're so impatient for being a plunger-boy!" He stood up from the seat of his throne. "And you know what else? Peach isn't even in this castle!"

Mario felt ready to snap. "Oh, right-a! I've heard that 'our princess is in another castle!' excuse_ loads-a_ times!"

The giant Koopa held up his claws in mock innocence. "No, really! She's not here! Why don't you come closer and see for yourself?"

Not being one to notice traps right away, Mario furrowed his eyebrows in genuine curiosity and took a few steps forward.

Bowser stifled a laugh. "You're going to have to come a little closer! It's a bit dark back here, you know!" Even though it was daytime, the sky was always cloudy around Bowser's Castle, so it was hard for Mario to see his way around. At the end of the corridor was a barred window, which let in a dim source of light. Mario walked towards it...

"Closer...closer..." Bowser anticipated.

Mario was now standing in the rays of light cast down from the window, looking all around him. He was disappointed; Peach really _wasn't_ here. But where else could she be? And why was Bowser so happy to have him visit for no reason?

Bowser snickered. "See? She's not there. You made this whole trip to my castle for nothing! But today must be your lucky day, because I have something to make up for Peach not being here...a _replacement_!"

And then, he reached his hands behind his back, took hold of something large, and pulled it forward to hit Mario on the head.

Mario jumped back to avoid being bludgeoned by the object just in time, realizing he'd been duped. "You!...You!" He was too surprised to even spit out his choicest swear words for the Koopa King. In his stupor, all he could ask was, "What's-a _that?_"

What Bowser now held was similar to a bazooka, which kind of resembled the great Koopa King himself. "Oh, this old thing? I got one of my friends to make it for me. He's this mad scientist named...And...Andro...whatever. Something like that."

Mario gulped. So now Bowser had friends on his side...did _they_ have something to do with Peach's disappearance?

Bowser's loud guffaw shook Mario from his thoughts. "Why the worried face, Mario? It ain't much. All it's gonna do is _knock you unconscious!_ Trust me, you won't feel any pain at all! Bwahahahaha!" Bowser shook the bazooka to charge it up, and the two eye-like orbs on the front started to glow an eerie yellow. The tubes crossing over the back filled up with gas, spraying out particles from both sides, which were forming a sphere within the gun's fang-studded opening...

Then Bowser pressed a clawed finger on the 'fire' button, and a white beam shot out, enveloping the entire throne room with a sporadic array of color. The last thing Mario saw was Bowser's face, twisted with amusement. Definitely something you don't wanna see right before you pass out.

He'd finally done it. Bowser had beaten Mario! With a maniacal laugh, the Koopa King lifted his head into the air, his mane of red hair looking wild as he roared in triumph:

"One hero down, seven to go!"

* * *

(A/N) Did the plot twist surprise you? I sure hope so.

Did anyone pick up on my references? For example, the line about how Bowser "had the power to transform the kings of seven different lands into plants or animals" referred to Super Mario Bros. 3.

I was gonna put in a Paper Mario reference, but since the first SSB game came out two years before PM did, the events in PM haven't happened yet in this story. The bazooka idea was inspired by the SSBB Subspace Emissary's gun, which turned the smashers into trophies, but this one only knocks the smashers unconscious. Why? We'll soon find out.

Also, Bowser mentioned the mad scientist guy named Andro-something. I wonder who_ that _is!

Reviews would be nice. I hope I get far with this story!


	2. Chapter 2

(A/N) It looks like this fic is a success! Thank you guys so much for reviewing! I had this story in my mind for years, and I finally decided to type it all up! The Prologue and Chapter 1 only took me a few nights to write, since I had already planned it through so many times.

And my first reviewer, :D! When I read your review, I was crying with tears of happiness! I didn't think my summary was too good, or my plot too original, but since this fic caught your eye and made you review...well, hey, I'm flattered! I'm so glad the story made you happy, so I made sure to type this chapter up faster than I normally would.

Also thanks to Mistress Happening for reviewing!

* * *

.:Chapter 2: Just Plain Krool:.

-oOo-

The second hero was a large creature, raised on an island to the south of the Mushroom Kingdom. However, he wasn't always a hero. For the first few years of his life, he was an enemy of Mario; but eventually, he settled his differences with the plumber, and the two became friends. Later, all was calm on his island, until one night, a group of thieving crocodiles arrived on its shores and stole his banana hoard. Ever since then, the tiny island's simian inhabitants constantly fought with the reptilian creatures, not just over their food supply, but also for their lives. One thing was for certain...

Donkey Kong would do anything he could to defend his island.

...But luckily for him, today was a Saturday, which meant he was free to do whatever he wanted. Every weekend, he would blend his favorite fruit to make a banana smoothie, gather up his lounge chair, and head down to the sandy shores of Kong Island. Spring was just starting, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It was going to be a perfect day at the beach.

Once he had climbed out of his treehouse and pushed his way through the jungle, DK set up his lounge chair, put on a pair of sunglasses, and laid back. There was nothing better than sipping a banana smoothie on a hot day. The ocean was perfectly calm and flat as well- DK decided that maybe later, he'd go for a swim.

Something didn't look right to him. The waves started swelling, and DK could distinctly hear something that sounded like a motorboat, slicing through the waves.

_'Maybe they're noises coming from the dock at Mushroom Harbor,'_ DK thought; but, he hastily dismissed it. _'No...these sounds are too close to be coming all the way from there..._' Just then, the waves started splicing in half. Something was coming...something _big_.

DK looked in the direction the rumbling was coming from, but all he could see was a small silhouette in the distance. DK shrugged off his worries and leaned further back in his lounge chair; after all, this was the beach, and he was here to relax...right? He dipped his feet in the sand and closed his eyes from behind his sunglasses. A few minutes later, DK started to drift off into a light sleep.

Unfortunately, he didn't notice that the sunlight being eclipsed, or how the temperature seemed to drop a few degrees as a monstrous shadow covered half the beach. In his unconscious state, DK's body shivered a little from the lack of warmth, which forced him to wake up.

_'Huh...what...?'_ The lax gorilla mumbled. _'Where did the sun go? There's not any clouds out today...'_

He lifted his sunglasses up his nose to rub his eyes, only to realize that the figure from the distance wasn't a mountain at all...it was a tower. It resembled a giant stone turret of a castle, and on top of it was the face and arms of a crocodile, complete with a crown on top of its head.

DK started to feel nervous; he knew who this tower was made after, but how did it get here? After all, he had beaten the crocodile king that the tower depicted three years ago! He tried to act fast and ditched his lounge chair to run further up the beach, but he didn't get very far before the lower hatch of the floating castle dropped open. As it did, a cloud of sand whipped up, and loud footsteps could be heard- a very bad sign.

DK unwillingly turned around, and his jaw dropped down into the sand at the sight before him.

-oOo-

The King of the Koopas looked out the window, his sight transfixed on the volcanoes in the distance and the meteors falling from the cloudy skies above. It seemed that the very atmosphere around Bowser's castle was rejoicing with him, because his life's mission was complete: he finally defeated Mario! No one else in the Mushroom Kingdom was a threat to him now. And once the rest of those heroes were out of the way, maybe he could have a chance at taking over the rest of the world...maybe.

Bowser walked down the marble staircase, opened the doors to the meeting room, and was greeted by almost every member of his army. Bowser sat down at the reserved seat for him at the head of the table, and the room went silent. Even the walls were probably interested in hearing what he had to say.

"Well, troops, I have some good news for once. Mario's about as good as _dead_!"

The entire ensemble went ecstatic with joy. Koopatrols threw up their helmets like graduation hats, Bob-ombs let off explosions, Boos laughed mischievously with their tongues lolling out, and Magikoopas cast out firecrackers with their wands.

Bowser held up both of his hands. "Hold your applause! Save the fanfare for when I finish telling you how I did it all!" His audience became so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. "Well, it all started when I formed this evil legion..."

Of course, Bowser omitted the fact that it was actually the mad scientist, not him, who invented the bazooka. After a few minutes of telling the (exaggerated) story of his brilliant plan, he finally got to the part where he tricked Mario, describing it right down to the finest detail. "And then, I pressed the button, and BAM! You shoulda seen the look on his face!" He laughed like an idiot afterwards.

As if on cue, his audience guffawed and banged their fists on the table, and a Koopatrol to Bowser's left almost fell out of his seat in laughter. Once he regained himself, he wiped a tear from his eye. "Wow, Lord Bowser! That's so cool!" he exclaimed. "I wish I had a bazooka like that! I always forget mine at home!"

"So, how did you invent it?" a more reserved guard at Bowser's right inquired. The rest of the table leaned their heads or helmets in like rubbernecks, and one of the Bob-ombs excitedly whispered, "Ooh, he's gonna tell!"

Bowser stiffened. "Uhh...long story, long story! I'll save that for another day!" He had to admit, if it weren't for that mad scientist's genius invention, his plan would've _never_ worked out.

The Koopatrol shrugged. "Sure thing, Lord Bowser. But what inspired you to capture Mario all of a sudden?"

Bowser chuckled. "It all stems from the legion I formed. Recently, I came in contact with a scientist. He's kind of hard to describe; he's like an ape, but he's _so_ much better than a certain other ape we know, that's for sure!" the table snickered, knowing who he was implying.

"He helped me set up all the plans for how to capture all these heroes. There's eight of them, and almost all of them come from different places. There was no way I could capture all of them, so all eight of us agreed to hunt down our respective arch-enemies. Mario just happened to be one of those eight heroes, and I got rid of him! Know what that means? It means Peach is about as good as _mine!_"

Kammy applauded. "Good call, Lord Bowser! Just think, if you hang out with these guys, you can have Peach AND the Mushroom Kingdom forever! And now that you're in a good mood, maybe we'll all get pay-raises!"

Bowser sneered. "As if! I need to save all the money I can get, if we're gonna repair the castle's plumbing system! Hey, maybe we could get Luigi to do that! It would be the most useful thing he ever did in his life! Gwar-har-har!" The room erupted in laughter once again; apparently, they hated both Mario _and_ his brother...or just plumbers in general.

"And from now on," Bowser began, "my castle will become the headquarters of this new legion. Hopefully that won't be much of an inconvenience for you guys...not that it matters!" he chuckled, but abruptly stopped as a stern expression crossed his face. "But since I've become the leader of this legion, I'm sorry to say that I won't have much time to be your leader anymore, what with capturing these heroes."

The atmosphere in the room changed from one of elation to worriment. A nervous Magikoopa spoke up, "But...who's gonna take your place as king?"

Bowser waved a claw. "Kammy will give out orders when I'm not around."

The Koopatrol on the king's left looked about ready to cry. He balled his hands into a pleading position. "But if you're gonna be busy all the time, who's gonna defend us if anything happens? Who's gonna light up the fireplace for us on cold nights? And most importantly..." -he started bawling- "Who's gonna give us verbal abuse?!"

"Oh, geez!" Bowser scoffed. "I think I've dished that out enough around here! Who agrees?"

His troops shifted uncomfortably in his seats. Nobody raised their hand.

"...Wow. You guys must _really_ like me."

A Hammer Bro spoke up. "You beat Mario, and he was going to be the death of us all eventually! You saved us from having a plunger shoved down our throats, bro!" A few of his comrades snickered at that scenario.

"Well, I'm flattered, troops!" Bowser nodded, rising from his chair. "Well, that wraps up our meeting for tonight. I think I've pretty much gone over everything, and since you guys can't change my mind over anything you may disagree on, I declare that this meeting is now over!" He clapped once, dismissing his troops from the table.

Everyone got out of their seats and filed out of the room; some of them happy about Mario's defeat, while others were worried about Bowser. Without him being around all the time, who would defend the castle? How long would it be for him to take the throne again? Who were the other members of the legion he was in? And who were the other 'heroes' he was talking about? The troops could only hope that there wasn't any more plumbers out there.

-oOo-

Luigi was starting to panic. Mario hadn't returned in hours! On most days, he would take care of Bowser in less than an hour and come home just in time to finish his pasta. He'd thrown the Koopa King around so many times, it was practically a part of his everyday schedule. But the older brother couldn't help but come to the conclusion that Bowser had tricked him this time. Why else wouldn't Mario have come home? Three hours had passed, and Luigi had a hunch that his brother was in danger; he'd gotten this same feeling when Bowser lifted Peach's castle into the sky last year, and Mario had fell into the forest below.

To make matters worse, Bowser's minions were walking around town in the open, looking particularly smug about something. It just wasn't right. Luigi knew they were up to something; obviously, they were happy because their biggest threat-and his best friend- was defeated. But the brother in green refused to give up. He would go and save Mario himself, even if it meant taking on Bowser alone.

Adjusting his green hat, Luigi got up from his chair and pushed open the front door. He was setting out for Bowser's Castle, planning on making the Koopa King regret messing with his older brother...

-oOo-

A wild breeze whipped up on the beach, causing sand to blow everywhere. DK held up his large fist to prevent the sand from buffeting his eyes. When everything cleared, he was greeted by a very familiar face...

"_K. Rool!_" DK growled. He didn't know whether to be furious or surprised at his archenemy's sudden reappearance.

"That's right, you lumbering fool!" the obese crocodile king stepped off of the hatch, holding what looked like a grey trumpet. "Your days of vacationing are over!"

DK grimaced. He could've sworn that he had defeated K. Rool- or Baron K. Roolenstein, as he was called back then- three years ago! Knowing that a fight was inevitable, the gorilla held up his arms; he would take any chance he got to fire a quick jab to K. Rool's red eye. "I thought you were-"

"Dead?" K. Rool chuckled harshly. "Sorry to ruin your day at the beach, monkey brains, but you can never really get rid of me, I'm afraid..." he took a few steps forward, holding up the silly-looking weapon he held in his hands.

The gorilla snorted, angrily blowing smoke from his nose out of fury. Right now, he wanted to get back to relaxing in his lounge chair and drinking a banana milkshake, not listen to_ this _idiot. He began to charge up his right fist, preparing to punch K. Rool into next week as he ran as fast as he could over the thick sand.

But as soon as he got within ten feet of his foe, the crocodile king aimed his trumpet-gun at the simian hero and blasted out a strange blue gas. Once it hit its target, DK froze on the spot, mid-punch. At this, K. Rool laughed as he tucked his weapon under one arm and picked up the frozen statue of DK in the other. K. Rool walked off towards the hatch of his floating castle and smirked.

"Well, that takes care of that!"

* * *

(A/N) At first, I introduced Yoshi in this chapter, but I saved him for later and decided to add in more for DK, and how he got captured. I think it 'fleshes out' the story a whole lot more.

Anyone spot the references this time?

- When that Koopatrol says, "I wish I had a bazooka like that! I always forget mine at home!" it's a reference to what a Toad says in Super Mario RPG about leaving his bazooka at home.

- When Bowser describes that mad scientist: "He's like an ape, but he's_ so _much better than a certain other ape we know!" It should be obvious who this is by now.

- That weapon K. Rool used against DK. It's one of my favorite weapons from a certain SNES game we all know and love! It also has a name, but it's never mentioned in the game.


	3. Chapter 3

(A/N) I gotta admit, this was hard to write, since I haven't played the respective series of _all _the smashers, such as Starfox or Zelda. I was held back from writing this thing because of schoolwork, as usual. But, Chapter 3 has been completely revised! You'll love it, I promise! It's so much more organized than what I originally wrote for this chapter.

Also thanks to Mistress Happening and Bookworm6892 for reviewing!

* * *

.:Chapter 3: Time and Space:.

-oOo-

In a mythical kingdom, the Hero of Time found himself ready to take a nap under a shady tree on a warm day. He lived in a world unlike the one that the first two heroes were accustomed to- a land that was forged by three goddesses, governed by wizardry, and occasionally taken over, not by a giant fire-breathing turtle, but by a tyrant king who was rather boar like- a reflection of his inner self.

It had been two months since the incident with that demented mask and the boy whom it possessed, and he was eternally thankful that peace had returned to his life. Saving a city in a parallel world from being destroyed by the moon within just three days is perhaps the most risky thing you can do. Even though he was the Hero of Time, during that adventure, time was definitely _not _on his side.

It had also been almost a decade since he, the third hero, had to save the three pieces of the Triforce from being taken by Ganondorf; by traveling back and forth between a period of seven years, he attained the Master Sword and used it to vanquish the evil king and his magic.

Needless to say, time-traveling was _exhausting_. Reminiscing about all of this only made him feel more tired, so he leaned his head back on the tree behind him and drifted off to sleep.

Just like all the other heroes', Link's day would start out peaceful, but of course, that was all about to change. Right now, Link was sleeping soundly before he was awaken by a scream; he jolted awake and looked around him, making sure with his eyes that everything in Hyrule Town was perfectly fine. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, except for one thing...

He had almost forgotten that Zelda was supposed to meet him here for an afternoon picnic today. It was already past noon, and she hadn't arrived yet. Figuring that maybe she was just running late, Link leaned back against the tree again to daydream for a few more minutes, but the rustling in his hat told him that someone wasn't agreeing with that idea.

"Listen!" a light voice warned him. Link grudgingly picked up his hat to allow Navi to fly out, a fairy that looked like a blue orb with wings. "Didn't you hear that screaming, Link? We should investigate!"

Link groaned. "It's probably just some kids playing tag in the forest!" Why did Navi always have to endlessly nag him about everything?

"I wouldn't be too sure about that," the blue fairy retorted. "What if someone got lost in there? It's called the Lost Woods for a reason..."

Link understood what she was implying, and he knew there was no point in arguing with her. Planning on making this a quick rescue, he forced himself to stand up and play a song to summon his mare, Epona. There was another scream from the forest, and this time, it was followed by a low chuckle. Climbing on Epona's back and setting out, Link hoped that by the time he got back, Zelda would be waiting for him by the tree. But something in his head told him that she wouldn't be coming anytime soon.

-oOo-

Luigi had a confident posture, twirling his mustache as he looked for the grey warp pipe leading to the Darklands. He found it simply enough; it was hidden behind an unusually dark-colored bush. If this obvious hiding spot was where Bowser hid the entrance to his world, maybe infiltrating his castle would be just as easy. Luigi jumped on top of the pipe, pushing down on it with his boots and getting sucked in.

A minute later, the one-man search party had re-emerged from the pipe, standing on the land of Bowser's side of the Mushroom Kingdom- the Darklands. Volcanoes seemed to scratch the clouds like the claws of the Koopa King himself, and the sky was smudged an inky black, as if tainted with acid. The ground was dull and grey like the warp pipe that brought them here, and it would occasionally shake with the eruption of a volcano in the distance, causing small meteors to fall.

But by far the most charming aspect of the Darklands was the lava. Pools of the liquid magma littered the ground like puddles after a rainy day. Except if you stepped in one of the puddles in the Darklands, your foot would be burned off. Needless to say, it certainly wasn't a place to go for a stroll. As soon as Luigi found his brother, he would high-tail it out of here as soon as possible. Guards were everywhere, and every second that passed put them in more danger than the last. He had no time to lose...

Luigi looked around at his surroundings, which were the antithesis of what the cheerful Mushroom Kingdom was. Even though it was undeniably hot, the sight of the bubbling lava still made him shiver. Wiping the sweat off of his forehead, which was coming down in beads, Luigi charged towards the double front doors of Bowser's Castle.

-oOo-

While all this was going on, the fourth hero was investigating a planet in a different galaxy entirely. She had received an emergency directive from Zebes, a backwater planet with unique kinds of wildlife living beneath the surface. At one point, it was also the headquarters to a race known as the Space Pirates and their leader, Mother Brain.

Some time ago, a human colony on the planet known as K-2L was wiped out by the Space Pirates. Only one person survived, and that was the three-year-old Samus Aran. Since then, she had been raised on Zebes by a bird-like species known as the Chozo, who made her a power suit to give her incredible strength. Samus was trained to become a warrior, and she parted ways with her Chozodian family to become a bounty hunter. Her purpose? To avenge her parents by wiping out the Space Pirates and their leader, Ridley.

Right now, she was currently in a Zebesian fortress known as Norfair, and an atomic bomb threatened to go off in just ten minutes. Luckily, Samus found it easily because of its large size. The problem? Trying to deactivate it. The only way it could be shut off was from the inside.

Knowing this, Samus activated her Maru-Mari form and jumped up into a slot entrance on the side of the bomb, which led into its inner structures. She'd picked up the morph ball trick in Brinstar; if anyone else attempted to try it, their bones would be crushed in the process. Once she rolled into the main hold of the structure, Samus uncurled herself and was able to stand up to her full height. Red, green, and blue wires crossed all over the place- she would have to determine which wire to cut.

She groaned. She could have easily torn the bomb to shreds from a distance, but the thing was huge, so the explosion probably would've caught her in its blast radius. Not to mention that all the valuable creatures in Norfair would be taken along with her. Samus didn't think the wildlife here was very friendly, but it would be unnecessary and foolish to just kill them all.

Thinking of the disaster the explosion would cause made Samus nervous; the cadence of the gears around her made her nervous. She felt her heart pounding as they clicked slowly towards the desired self-destruct time. She only had one chance at cutting the right wire.

To figure out the right one, Samus grabbed each of the three wires in her hand. When she touched the luminous green one, she felt the electricity flow through her cybronic suit. _'This is the one,'_ she thought. She pulled it tightly, ripping it apart and sending sparks showering around her knees. The atomic bomb powered down, the clicking ceased as the gears stopped moving.

"Got it!" Samus exclaimed gleefully. She turned into her Maru Mari form again, making her way out of the bomb's interior and back through the entrance...

...and rolled right into the clawed hands of Ridley.

-oOo-

Luigi grabbed hold of the double doors' Bowser-shaped handlebars, trying with all his might to pull them open without making a sound. The last thing he wanted was to attract the attention of a wandering Koopatrol.

The double doors split down the middle and opened with a low creak, the kind of noise that rusty old doors make when you enter a haunted house. Since Luigi was terrified of anything haunted, he hesitated to walk in, afraid that something was going to ambush him as soon as he stepped inside. It was unusually dark in here. He had a bad feeling about this...

Just then, the plumber heard a cackle coming from deep inside the castle. He started cowering; what if this place was infested with Boos? Suddenly, the doors shut behind him, causing him to hiccup in fear; there was no turning back now.

Luigi sighed deeply, trying to give himself a pep-talk. '_Look. I know Boos are your number one fear right now. But we're here to save your own brother, Weegie! Not just some princess. Your own brother! Can get over your fears, just this one time? Would you do it for Mario?_'

He tried to get himself to stop shaking. _'It's about time I grew up a little.'_

And then he was struck with a brilliant idea. He remembered something he could do to make this castle less scary: light it up! He held a gloved fist out and flicked it, and a green flame ignited, bringing light to the spooky area around him.

Luigi was starting to feel just as confident as he had when had first left the house. Now that he had fire to defend himself with, it would help him get through here a lot faster. _'Heh, I was so scared, I forgot I could do that!_' Throwing fireballs was a trait that he and his brother had inherited. Luigi then pumped his other fist in the air, causing a green flame to ignite on that one, too. Pummeling Bowser would be a real cinch!

-oOo-

The Lost Woods certainly lived up to its name. This mysterious, verdant area of Hyrule was home to a maze-like forest that many a traveler had gotten lost in, sometimes forever. Choose the wrong path, and you might find yourself running in circles.

Just like when he had to follow the sound of Saria's song when he was younger, all Link had to do now was follow the screams echoing from somewhere within the forest's depths. Making sure not to accidentally fall through the hole in the tree that led to Termina, Link held onto Epona tightly as he directed her through the forest's paths: north, east, south...it was all coming back to him now.

A half hour later, Link and Epona halted at a clearing. It was disturbingly quiet around here, the sunlight streaming through the canopy of trees high above. It looked similar to the place where Link first pulled the Master Sword, but something wasn't right.

Just then, Link and Epona were toppled over as an enormous boar-like creature tackled them beneath its tusks. Seeing how easily its victims fell to the ground, the creature snorted. _"I was expecting a little more from you, Link!" _The mere roar of its voice woke Link from his stupor on the ground, as Epona was trying her best to stand up on all four legs.

Knowing that his arrows would probably be useless against this monster, Link stood in front of Epona's flailing form and unsheathed his sword. _"Ganon!" _he seethed. "I know you're keeping Zelda here! Where is she?" he demanded, glaring daggers at the beast's piggish face.

But Ganon just chuckled and shook his head._ "Wouldn't _you_ like to know, Fairy Boy! I'll have you know that she's not here!" __  
_

Link pointed the tip of his sword directly in front of Ganon's eyes. "Liar! I heard her screaming- now, where is she?!"

Ganon grumbled out of annoyance._ "She's not here. I can prove it..."_ the monster then turned back into his Gerudo form, Ganondorf; unfortunately for Link, he could change back and forth between forms at will while in the Light World. "No need to cause a strife."

Link didn't say anything. As Epona stood up behind him and galloped away from the battle, the swordsman let his actions do the talking and charged at Ganondorf, screaming like a savage. Ganondorf ran forward too, smirking; he knew he was going to win this time. Even though Link didn't know it, he had allies on his side...

Link slashed at his foe's sword, while his the King of Evil raised his; he feigned a swing and turned around, using his fist to punch Link in his unguarded stomach. He had successfully knocked the wind out of him.

The Hero of Time staggered backwards, clutching his gut as he fell to the ground. It would take minutes before he could catch his breath again; when he did, Ganondorf waited for him to stand up, as Gerudo Kings had to follow a code of honor in battle. Link stood up and poised his sword to strike another blow, but the King just knocked him back down again with another quick jab of dark magic. After a long time, Link didn't try to get up again, so Ganondorf kicked his sword to the side and used one hand to grab him. He knew Link would get up again soon, so he moved quickly, using his other hand to unleash magic.

Looking around him one last time, The King of Evil opened up a portal to another dimension, stepping through. "No need to cause a strife," he chuckled, "when you don't even stand a chance!"

-oOo-

Standing alone in Bowser's throne room, Luigi was looking all around him, seeing if there was any trace of Mario's clothing. He knew that a fight had broken out here from the huge scorch mark on the carpet, but what was the outcome? Luigi shook at the thought of Mario being roasted alive.

Not wanting to remain in the room any longer, the plumber in green planned on searching through the corridor outside the hangar, the highest floor of Bowser's Castle. Maybe there would be more clues out there.

But as soon as he opened the door behind him, he realized that a certain Koopa was going to ruin that idea.

"Where do you think _you're_ going?" Bowser asked, looming in front of him with an amused smile. Luigi jumped up about two feet in the air in shock. When he landed, he tried to keep his knees from buckling together to look brave. Luigi took a shaky step forward. "I-I'm here to kick your butt, if you d-don't mind!"

"Looks like you're going to meet the same fate as your brother, then!" the king guffawed loudly, almost making the floor shake. "Speaking of him, you should've seen the look on his face when I fired that bazooka!" Bowser wiped a tear from his eye, remembering the priceless look on Mario's face moments before he blasted him.

The flames on Luigi's gloves went out immediately, as if someone had dumped a bucket of water on them. "A bazooka? You b-beat Mario with...a _bazooka_?!"

Bowser sighed, but chuckled again. "Yep! I might as well tell you how I did it, since you're probably not going to know what I'm talking about anyway! You see, it all started when I gave up. And by giving up, I decided to create a legion..."

"R-Really?" Luigi asked in mock-interest. "W-What's the legion for, huh?"

"It's to get rid of you _heroes_!" Bowser growled, grimacing at the mere mention of the word. "We've realized that it's hopeless to take you on alone...but together, we can take down every last one of you!" By the end of this statement, a maniacal grin had formed in the lines of the Koopa King's jaws once again.

Luigi just shook his head. "W-Well, it looks like I'm going to have to r-ruin that idea!"

"Oh, don't worry, Luigi!" Bowser chortled. "You don't count as a hero. Yet." Seeing that the green plumber was confused, Bowser kept on going. "Since I consider _Mario_ to be my mortal enemy, I don't have permission from the legion to capture you. There's only one hero for each of us to kill, you know. I'll deal with you later!"

Luigi frowned, throwing his fears out the window with an indignant raise of his right fist. "Oh, come on! Just because I'm younger than Mario doesn't mean I haven't saved lives before!"

Bowser chuckled. "You're still a coward, though!" At this, Luigi rubbed his gloves together and re-ignited the green flames on his fists, twice as big as they were before. "Oh, so I'm the king of second bananas, huh?"

"You said it, not me!" Bowser waved a claw. "Besides, I would be thankful that I wasn't one of the eight heroes. It means you get to be spared!"

"And why should I believe you, after how you tricked Mario?" Luigi asked, trying his best not to tear up at the mention of his brother and look weak in front of the tyrannical turtle.

"Well, you won't exactly be spared," Bowser reasoned, "but at least you'll experience less pain than your friends!"

"What does that mean?!" Luigi wondered out loud. What was Bowser planning to do next? What 'pain' had Mario supposedly gone through? And where was Peach, if she had been kidnapped all this time?

Then Bowser pointed a sharp finger at something behind Luigi. "Look out! There's a Boo behind you!"

Luigi, gullible as ever, shrieked and looked behind him. While his back was turned, the Koopa King then reached out a claw, grabbed him, and tossed the hapless plumber through the ceiling. Luigi was sent soaring outside of the castle's boundaries...

-oOo-

Even from within her morph ball form, Samus knew something wasn't right. She was supposed to roll out of the bomb and fall onto the hot grounds of Norfair. Instead, she landed onto something...scaly. _She'd been caught off guard._

She immediately uncurled herself and stood up straight, aiming her gun at Ridley's open jaw. She should've known that he was behind all of this; only something as intelligent and strong as him could've created this atomic weapon and carried it here. The thing was massive- not even Samus herself could've scratched a dent in it.

"So, you're planning to blow up Norfair now? Quite the change of plans, eh?" she questioned, not once blinking an eye.

_"If it means getting rid of you once and for all, I'd do anything!_" the space dragon snapped, closing his mouth to avoid having a missile get blasted down his throat.

This wasn't a good enough answer for Samus. "This place has always been like a home to you! Where are you working at now? Speak!" She launched a missile into Ridley's wing, and then began to charge up a wave beam, which was quickly reaching full power.

Ridley screamed as the missile tore through the thin tissue of his left wing, leaving a smoking hole. _"Who I'm working for is none of your concern! I don't have time for this...I'm taking you to headquarters _now!" The screeching he made resounded of the cavernous walls, causing pieces of rock to crash down from the ceiling.

Samus tried to jump out of her target's claws, but with a swift snap of his jaw, Ridley turned the tables on her. Holding Samus in his mouth, he slammed her against the wall and held her there with one hand. In less than a minute, Samus had become the target, and he was the hunter. Ridley then flexed his claws and held Samus in place, spread his wings, and took flight. As he soared through the caverns of Norfair with an impaired wing, he successfully managed to knock his prey unconscious as she was repeatedly pounded against the wall.

The fourth hero literally bit the dust as she was carried away from Zebes...

* * *

(A/N) There's one thing I want to make note of. I know Samus' timeline is_ really_ confusing, considering that the order that the games were released in having nothing to do with the actual timeline in her universe. For example, even though Super Metroid came out 8 years before Metroid Prime, it takes place after Metroid Prime in Samus' timeline.

In this fic, the events take place between Metroid 2: Return of Samus and Super Metroid, before Zebes was destroyed.

References:

- The title was called 'Time and Space' because Link is the Hero of Time, while Samus is a hero in Space. Clever, huh?

- Link's previous adventure in Majora's Mask is mentioned a lot, and Ocarina of Time is also hinted at when it is mentioned that Link traveled between a period of 7 years. Oh, and Navi's back. She'll make a few appearances now and then, but she won't be as annoying this time around. I might decide to bring Tatl back, too.

- Samus' 'morph ball' mode is called the Maru Mari form in Japan.


	4. Chapter 4

(A/N) Hey guys! Some of you might read this chapter and wonder, "didn't I already read some of this before?"

This chapter was originally written as chapter 2, but I realized that Yoshi came after Link and Samus in terms of the nintendo timeline, so I decided to introduce each character based on the order of their appearance. As a result, Yoshi's part got pushed back. I hope this doesn't cause too much confusion!

Thanks goes to Souldin and Mistress Happening for reviewing last chapter! I'm writing for all of you guys!

* * *

.:Chapter 4: Paradise Lost:.

-oOo-

Around two decades ago, the babies known as Mario and Luigi were being carried by a stork to their parents' house, having been delivered that very night. Nobody would have ever thought there was anything out of the ordinary about them, except for one person: Kamek. Using his crystal ball, he predicted that Mario and Luig would cause great havoc to the Koopa Tribe, as well as the adult Bowser.

The Magikoopa knew that they had special powers, and that they were the future heroes of the Mushroom Kingdom. That very night, Kamek took the skies, knocking the stork out of the air and snatching the two babies in the process. Their heroic abilities would then be taken away and given to Bowser, and he would dispose of the brothers before they even had the chance to know their own potential.

When the plan was executed, Kamek successfully captured Luigi, but Mario and the stork plummeted down towards the ocean. It was by a miracle that there was a strong breeze that night- it picked up the bundle Mario was in and pushed him safely towards land. At daybreak, Mario descended into a forest on an island, and a green dinosaur-like creature found him, along with a map of where Bowser's castle was. While the dinosaur was confused on what the map was, Mario pointed at one of the pictures on it, somehow knowing where Luigi was located.

The dinosaur vowed to help him find his brother, letting Mario ride on his back. After a long journey, Luigi was reunited with Mario again, and Bowser's plan was ruined. The one who ultimately saved the brothers' lives and prevented the downfall of his island and the Mushroom Kingdom...

The fifth hero was none other than Yoshi.

And today, it was just another peaceful morning on Yoshi's Island...the home of the green dinosaur himself.

In a straw hut by the beach, Yoshi rolled over in his nest, stretching his arms and legs with a yawn. Feeling fidgety, the always-cheerful reptile was awakening, planning on going to the forest for a breakfast of fresh-picked fruits. Ever since he saved the island so many years ago, he lived an easy life. Most of the time.

Standing up, Yoshi was about three feet tall, with a bulb-like nose and a ridge of three red spines down his back. He wore a smile on his face everyday, as well as a pair of brown boots on his feet and a saddle on his back, in case Mario ever needed him for quick transportation. Ever since Yoshi saved Mario's life as a baby, they were more like brothers than partners.

He tugged on his boots, ready to go outside and enjoy yet another sunny day. Yoshi raced down the front stone pathway from his cabana, that is, until he heard a large _crash _and was in the face with a magic spell. Looking up, he saw fireballs shooting from the sky, causing the villagers around him to panic as the roofs of their houses were set on fire.

Wondering what the source of all the chaos could be, Yoshi heard a crazed laughter and looked up to see a blue, hooded figure riding on a broomstick, soaring straight for him.

"Eehehehehe! Yoshi, I've found you!"

-oOo-

Diddy Kong was tearing up DK's front porch, wondering where on earth his tie-wearing uncle could be.

It wasn't like him to go missing on the weekends. Every Saturday, DK had promised his monkey companion that he would take time out of his day to play games with him and his friends, such as tag in the jungle or volleyball on the beach. Diddy Kong was DK's companion; for years, he had tagged along with the gorilla to rescue the Kongs' stolen banana hoard from the Kremlings and their leader, K. Rool.

Today, Diddy had arranged to meet with him at noon, but apparently, DK had forgotten about their schedule.

"I don't get it. He should've been here a half hour ago!" Diddy panicked, sifting through banana piles. After no luck of finding him, he started lifting up paintings to see if his uncle was somehow hiding underneath them.

His girlfriend, Dixie Kong, was more reserved, trying to take matters into her own hands a little more calmly. "Did you notice his lounge chair and sunglasses are gone? He probably went down to the beach and overslept," she suggested. "He always falls asleep after he drinks those Banana Milkshakes." Then to herself, she thought_, 'Hmm...__I wonder what else he puts in them..._'

"You're right," Diddy replied, trying to calm himself down. "We'll check the beach first before worrying. It's not like anything could've happened to him anyway. K. Rool's dead, after all!" he laughed nervously.

Soon, he would know how much he'd regret making that statement.

-oOo-

Out in the depths of space, a star-shaped planet known as Pop Star was about to go through a similar dilemma.

Popstar wasn't an ordinary planet by any means; while most were in the shape of a sphere, Popstar was what the name implied- a living star, surrounded by three rings that were red, green, and blue. Despite its yellow appearance, it was home to oceans and landmasses, as well as a continent known as Dreamland. This was the place where a small, round creature known as Kirby was born eight years ago.

Kirby was like a pink ball with stubby little hands and red shoes. Only about eight inches tall, he was always considered as a child; however, his abilities were nothing to sneeze at. He could inhale creatures larger than him, copy their powers, and use them against his enemies. It's been said that whatever Kirby fully swallows is sent to another dimension.

Needless to say, Kirby never stayed too far away from the dinner table. Present him with a full buffet, and he'll show you a table of clean plates within seconds.

On his most recent adventure, the heart-shaped planet known as Ripple Star was covered and by Dark Matter. One of the inhabitants, a fairy named Ribbon, tried to save one of the planet's crystals and fly away before she was infected by the evil haze. She was defeated by Dark Matter's minions and crashed into the nearby planet as Popstar, where she met Kirby. Sadly, the crystal shard that she was holding broke into 72 pieces and were scattered around Popstar's solar system. But Kirby, being positive, finds one crystal for her and promises to help her recover all the rest.

Together, they ventured along with friends such as Waddle Dee, Adeleine the painter, and King Dedede, who was normally Kirby's enemy. However, on this occasion, Waddle Dee convinced him to come along with them after being freed from Dark Matter's possession.

Even now, Dark Matter was plotting for its next attack...

-oOo-

Yoshi looked up as he heard the deranged laughter; the hooded figure riding on the broomstick was Kamek. The dinosaur groaned; he had dealt with the Magikoopa long ago, when he had to reunite Mario and Luigi as babies. But why was he revisiting this place after such a long time? The last time he had seen Kamek, the wizard promised he'd be back...but after almost so many years?! Something wasn't right here.

He ducked for cover and dodged Kamek as the maniacal magician raised his wand and cast out a magic spell, which blasted out a triplet of triangles, circles, and squares. "Kekekekeke! Hold still, Yoshi-baby!" The spell hit a nearby basket of fruit, which turned into a small army of Goombas and Koopas.

Yoshi shrieked; every time one of the spells hit something, it would turn into one of Bowser's henchmen, which would then proceed to attack him. Retreating into the forest, the dino scratched his chin as he tried to think of a plan. Since Kamek only fought while on his broomstick, he'd need to use a far-reaching attack.

Raising his finger as he thought of an idea, he tried to push Kamek off his broom when he drew close, but the enemies that spawned from the magic attacks shoved into him and threw off his aim, ending that idea. He then launched his tongue out and swallowed a nearby Goomba, turning it into an egg and throwing it at Kamek. The Magikoopa snarled as he was hit in the face with the spotted egg, causing his glasses to crack. He wiped the excess bits of eggshell from his nose and used his wand to shoot a magic spell at Yoshi's tongue, causing it to turn numb and freeze, preventing Yoshi from using it. The dino blinked, gasping as he realized he could no longer swallow his enemies.

And soon, he would be completely surrounded by the enemies spawning from Kamek's spells. Yoshi tried one last thing; he rapidly kicked his legs and hovered into the air, planning on kicking Kamek to the ground. Never before had an enemy been able to survive being smacked around in the face by a flutter kick...until now. Kamek quickly swerved to the left, dodging Yoshi as he tried to slam into him with his boots. As the hapless dinosaur fell back to the ground unguarded, Kamek turned around and held his wand back, shooting out a purple-colored blast of magic.

Yoshi turned around just in time to yelp, but it was too late; the gas entered through his nose, knocking him unconscious within seconds. Kamek grinned as he swooped down and halted on his broomstick, pulled an empty sack from his robes, and threw it over Yoshi's head, tying him up and hoisting him over his back. He flew back to Bowser's Castle, cackling all the way.

-oOo-

Diddy and Dixie had cut through the jungle, running across the hot sands on the coast of Donkey Kong Island. Upon seeing what was left on the beach, though, the two young simians had regretted coming out here.

A smashed lounge chair and a pair of crushed sunglasses littered the sand, and the cup that DK's banana milkshake was in had been broken into pieces. Next to this mess was a line of three-toed footprints, leading into the ocean. The strangest thing, though, was the huge skid marks along the shoreline. It was if a giant boat had washed up here and took DK with it to sea.

Taking in the sight before him, Diddy's heart started pounding. "He's not here! He must've been kidnapped again!"

"But that's impossible," Dixie remarked. "K. Rool is dead, and his minions left after Kiddy and I defeated KHAOS. Heck, even Crocodile Island is underwater now. There's no way they could've came here!" Even in the most confusing situations, Dixie always tried to keep her cool. And right now, she was acting the complete opposite of Diddy.

The hat-wearing chimp walked up to the footprints, examining them closer. A few feet away from the broken lounge chair, he noticed a set of prints that looked like the owner of them had tried to run away from someone. It all made sense now.

"K. Rool did this, he must have!" Diddy shrieked, clapping his hands above his head in panic as he ran around in circles. "He came onto the beach and took Uncle DK!"

"Calm down!" Dixie scolded, holding her hands against her ears to drown out Diddy's screams. "We've saved him before, haven't we?! Standing around here isn't going to help us. Come on, let's go back home and find Cranky and the others. I'm sure they'll have a solution for this." Diddy rubbed a hand against his aching head, feeling nauseous with worry. "I just hope there's something they can actually do..."

-oOo-

King Dedede was fumbling on his throne chair, wondering how on earth he would capture the sixth hero. "What I need is a monster that would clobber that there Kirby!" He slammed a mallet down on his armrest, startling a passing Waddle Dee. "I don't get it. Kirby's so small, practically a baby. It would be so easy! All I need is a creature strong enough to pummel that blob...is it so much to ask for?!"

As if on cue, a dark, shadowy substance seeped through one of the windows of King Dedede's Castle. It stuck to the walls, crawling towards the throne room as if it were a parasite. And a parasite it was. Dark Matter had found his victim; he'd attacked King Dedede before, but this time, the chubby penguin seemed to be asking for it. Pleading for its assistance...

"If only I was strong enough. If only I had the powers _he_ had..." King Dedede mumbled, hoping that no one would hear how secretly jealous he was of Kirby.

Dark Matter crawled into the room unnoticed, keeping close to the wall as it made its way towards the ceiling. As soon as King Dedede put his mallet down and stopped grumbling, the evil entity swooped towards his head and entered it. The victim was possessed, and now, it was time to get rid of the one thing that both the mind controller and its puppet hated...Kirby.

The mind-controlled Dedede then rose his mallet high, jumped off his throne chair, and knocked down the double front doors of his castle with just one push. He would find Kirby and capture him if it was the last thing he'd do. And luckily for him, Kirby was walking around Dreamland, probably looking for some food to gorge himself on. _Perfect. _The possessed penguin then jumped about twenty feet in the air, landing right in front of Kirby with a star-smashing thud.

Kirby squeaked at the king's sudden appearance and fell onto his back, waddling his feet in the air. King Dedede took advantage of this moment by inhaling him and shooting him into a tree, making him dizzy. Kirby fell to the ground with spirals in his eyes, rubbing his sore head, and tried to stand upright. He immediately figured out that something was wrong with his archnemesis, so he started to suck in air, hoping to trap King Dedede or pull out whatever was controlling him from inside his body. He didn't know that this was exactly what Dark Matter was waiting for.

As the evil infection from within King Dedede's mind continued to pull the strings, it commanded its host to pummel Kirby into the ground with his mallet as soon as he got inhaled close enough to the unsuspecting pink blob. The penguin king obliged, and just as Kirby was about to absorb him, he jumped into the air with irregular speed as he swung his heavy mallet right on top of Kirby's head, knocking him out. The job was done. There were only two heroes left now...

* * *

(A/N) At first, I didn't know who to use as Yoshi's enemy. I didn't want to use just Bowser, because I felt that Yoshi deserves his own arch nemesis.

I wanted to use Boshi, but he's not much of a 'bad guy,' and isn't really a reoccurring enemy. I couldn't use Baby Bowser, because that's impossible, and I wasn't going to pull a _Partners in Time _and mess with time travel. And then I wanted to use Bowser Jr. at one point, but he wasn't introduced, or 'born' until Super Mario Sunshine, so that was impossible too. I finally decided on Kamek, because he was the one who made Yoshi go on that whole adventure. He might be small, but he's excellent at magic.

References:

- The title is a reference to the longest English epic ever written, _Paradise Lost_. I think it fits this chapter pretty well, because Yoshi, Diddy, and Kirby live in places of paradise and happiness, and now...they're not in paradise anymore!

- Dixie Kong made a reference to Donkey Kong Country 2 when she said that Crocodile Island had sunk, as well as her adventure in DKC 3, when she defeated KHAOS, a robot that the Kremlings built.

- The story behind Kirby and the Crystal Shards was mentioned here, as well as Dark Matter. Something tells me we might see him again soon...

- King Dedede's line, "I need a monster that would clobber that there Kirby!" is taken from the anime, Kirby: Right Back at Ya!


	5. Chapter 5

(A/N) Wooh, Chapter 5! It's certainly been a long time, but it's here!

It's not very long, but it doesn't matter that much, because from here on out, it's gonna be epic! After this chapter's over, I'll have introduced all eight of the smashers and how they got captured, so then we can move onto the action! I'm so psyched!

Thanks goes to test subject nine, XXPheonix'sXAshesXX, and dark-lemur for reviewing while I was gone!

* * *

.:Chapter 5: Of Monkeys and Maniacs:.

-oOo-

About twenty years ago, a planet named Corneria of the Lylat System had its very own hero. They put all their trust and faith in a man named James McCloud, who was a legendary pilot and a mercenary-for-hire working under the orders of General Pepper, leader of the Cornerian Army. When he founded the original team, it only consisted of three members- himself, Peppy Hare, and Pigma Dengar, who would later betray him. Together, they traveled the Lylat system in search of duties and distress calls, when one day, they were sent on a mission to investigate the galaxy's most hospitable planet, Venom, the place where the villain named Andross had been exiled to.

Andross was, at one time, a brilliant scientist of Corneria. His research and intentions were beneficial, and he earned the title of a genius. However, his desire for power drove him into insanity. He started conducting dangerous experiments, one of them which resulted in an explosion that tore up a large portion of Corneria City. General Pepper then banished the madman to Venom, thinking he would never be able to survive on the desolate, barren planet; its air was practically unbreathable. However, it probably would've been better if Andross had just been executed right away, considering what happened next: he somehow managed to live on Venom, conducting gruesome experiments on himself to allow him to survive, and created an empire.

Five years after the mad scientist had been exiled, James arrived on Venom, wondering if the rumors of him building an army there were true. His teammate Pigma betrayed him to Andross, who shot James and Peppy, killing the former in an instant. Knowing that he had failed the mission, Peppy returned home and alerted General Pepper of what happened, who then passed on the news to his son, Fox McCloud, about his father's fate.

Having lost his only parent, Fox nearly committed suicide out of grief, but was ultimately saved by Peppy, who became a father figure to him. Years later, Fox then joined the Cornerian Flight Academy as a teenager, and he formed a team with Falco Lombardi and Slippy Toad. Not long after, the Lylat Wars broke out. On this adventure, the Star Fox team saved the universe from the threat of Andross and the Venomian army. They were literally Corneria's last hope, and they were given the Arwings, the most advanced ships of the time, to take down Andross' empire. It was a complete success, and the simian dictator was destroyed.

It's been four years since that incident. Fox had seemingly disintegrated Andross, and the Lylat Wars had ended. Little did he or his team know that their worst nightmare would be revived...

-oOo-

In the land of Kanto, Viridian forest was a popular dwelling place for all kinds of Pokémon. Nestled between Pewter and Viridian City, the trees in the forest were among the thickest in the entire region, so little light was able to touch the forest floor. It was a cool, moist place for bug and other tiny Pokemon to make their home, and there was plenty of room for them to all coexist peacefully, away from human civilization.

It was also the collective gathering place for a certain kind of electric Pokemon that wasn't found anywhere else- the species of the eight and last hero, Pikachu. For the sake of clarity, it was simply referred by its species' name.

Pikachu was a small, yellow, chubby mouse Pokémon that was about a foot-and-a-half tall, weighing only thirteen pounds. Even though they were tiny compared to the stronger Pokemon of Kanto, they were extremely fast and had powerful electric attacks. Pikachu could disharge entire thunder bolts from the red cheeks on its face, and its sensitive tail was like a lightning rod. When many of them gathered in one place, they could cause a thunderstorm!

Today was just like any other day. Everything in Viridian forest was the same as it always was: Ratatas playfully headbutting each other; Pidgeys kicking up sand, blinding Caterpies so they could catch them; Spearows trying to avoid being stung by Weedles, and Pikachu, who was wandering around in its clearing, which was set up between the trees.

The rodent was making its way over to a tree stump, ready to lay on top of it and take a nap. For the rodent hero, it had been a long morning of finding food and battling against Beedrills; now, it was time for an afternoon nap. The yellow creature curled up on the tree stump, surrounding its body with its lightning-bolt shaped tail as it snored, blowing bubbles out of its nose. Pikachu was only asleep for five minutes until its ears started to twitch, sensing something wrong. It could feel great danger coming...

-oOo-

Fox and his team were traveling across the Lylat System, defending the innocent from other-worldly threats. He was a pilot, combatant, adventurer, and the leader of his mercenary unit, the Star Fox Team.

They were currently cruising in the Great Fox, their space aircraft and mobile headquarters. Approximately 2919.9 ft high and 1230.3 ft. wide, it was equipped with Gravity Diffusion to defend itself and enter the atmospheres of foreign planets, and a Dual Laser Cannon, to take out entire squadrons, asteroids, and battleships. It was constructed under the orders of James McCloud, but the ship was passed on to his son, due to his untimely death.

Recently, General Pepper had requested that team Star Fox investigate a strange event in Corneria City, the capital of the Lylat system. After three years, most of the city had been rapidly rebuilt from the battle it had with Andross and the mercenaries known as Star Wolf. But currently, trouble was brewing from the center of the city. Pepper claimed that for some reason, the roads had cracks in them, as if they were about to split open.

_'This ought to be interesting,'_ Fox muttered to himself. Besides from what happened during the Lylat Wars, you didn't hear about too many threats coming from Corneria City.

"Wonder what happened down there?" Falco asked skeptically. "After hearing what General Pepper said, it sounds like the effects of an earthquake or something."

"I don't know," Peppy said, setting the Great Fox's coordinates as he prepared to land, "but it doesn't sound like anything we've ever dealt with before..." No sooner had he finished that sentence then the ground below started rumbling again. Suddenly, the roads in the center of Corneria City split open, and a nearby bridge swayed and collapsed as a result of the aftermath. Fox shrieked as two massive hands reached from the ground and tried to snatch at the Great Fox.

"RA-HAHAHAHA!" a voice bellowed from beneath the surface of Corneria City's streets. Peppy squealed and took control of the Great Fox just in time to swerve out of the way as the massive creature from below rose into the air, hovering as it towered over even the tallest skyscrapers.

The rest of the team screamed as they realized who it was, but Fox just snarled. _"Andross!"_ he growled, glaring daggers at his arch nemesis through the windows of the Great Fox. Despite his confidence, however, Fox felt a little worried. _'He was supposed to have self-destructed!'_ he thought, wondering how on earth Andross could've been resurrected. The mad scientist seemed to read his thoughts as he boomed:

_"It's been too long, hasn't it, Fox? Much...too...long..." _He emphasized every word dangerously_. "I'm sure you're wondering how I was brought back after being obliterated on Venom. __It was pure luck you saw that mirage of your dad to lead you to safety..."_ Fox's heart sank as he heard this statement. Had he really seen his dad back on Venom, moments before Andross self-destructed? Or was it all just an illusion? He didn't have time to think about it now- he had to focus on taking Andross out first. After all, the simian hated Fox with a passion; perhaps he was just lying about James McCloud being an illusion...

_"After disintegrating, I became a disembodied spirit, forever banished to roam the universe." _With every word he spoke, the ground seemed to shudder. _"I traveled across many galaxies, until one creature promised to restore me to my physical form..."_ He stopped speaking and raised his hands up, as if preparing to have a fist fight with the Great Fox. _"Thanks to him, I've been resurrected. And now I'll repay him...by taking care of _you!_"_

Fox grimaced. Who was the creature Andross was talking about? Did he have new allies? Were they from another galaxy entirely?

Just then, as the Great Fox charged up the Dual Laser Cannon, Andross shattered the mothership's window with a_ crash_ and reached inside, taking Fox out in one of his giant-sized hands. With the other hand, he grabbed the Great Fox and pulled it back, shooting it off as if it were a paper plane.

"Fox!" Slippy screamed through the intercom, the other teammates panicking in the background. "We're gonna have to land this thing somewhere before we can save you!"

But Fox McCloud couldn't hear him, as Andross had already disappeared and taken him along for the ride. Wherever they were, they were certainly no longer in the Lylat system.

-oOo-

Pikachu wiggled its nose, smelling something burning. With a light fluttering of the eyes, the Pokemon stood up on all fours, shaking its fur out and raising its tail. It fell backwards in fright as it took in the scenery before it: the forest was burning!

A deep voice chuckled as a tall silhouette appeared between the trees. The figure made its way into the forest's clearing, revealing itself to be a humanoid animal- one that Pikachu had never seen before. It stood on two legs and had the physical traits of a human, but at the same time, it looked nothing like one. Its skin was light purple, with two horn-like stubs on its head, and it had a tail that was long as the creature was tall. Its eyes were menacing, as if they were staring through Pikachu instead of directly at it. But by far the creepiest thing about it was under its head: it appeared to have two necks. Almost as if it were an experiment gone wrong...

Pikachu took a few steps back, charging up electricity in the pouches on its face. Its cheeks turned yellow when it unleashed a thundershock as a preliminary warning against the mysterious stranger, telling it to back off. Pikachu didn't like to start fights, but this thing was invading its home a little too much. And what was up with that noise it made earlier? Pikachu had never heard a Pokémon laugh like that before.

The creature shrugged off the attack effortlessly. Pikachu's eyes widened in shock, but were quickly replaced with fury. ("What are you?") it asked, trying its very best not to look afraid. ("Why did you come here?")

_("I am Mewtwo.__ Little Pikachu, don't make this harder than it is. I was sent here to capture you.")_

Bad answer. Pikachu wiped the sweat off its face and charged up all the electricity left in its body, unleashing a thunderbolt aimed at its target with astonishing speed and accuracy. The little mouse grinned to itself; no creature in this forest had ever survived through a thunderbolt attack, much less have been able to stand up after getting hit. But when the smoke cleared from the aftermath, the figure was still standing. Pikachu gasped and started panting with fear. _'Impossible! This creature must be an illusion! It just bounced off him like nothing!'_

Mewtwo interrupted Pikachu's thoughts with a chilling laugh. _("Don't you realize you have no chance against me? I'm a living legend, the only one of my kind, and you're just an ordinary Pikachu...") _He charged up a Shadow Ball, planning on making the little rat squirm.

Pikachu closed its eyes, accepting its fate as it was blasted into the chest with dark power. Once Mewtwo was sure it was unconscious, he picked it up with one hand and levitated it in the air, surrounding it with a force field.

_("Just an ordinary Pikachu...")_ Mewtwo chortled, shaking his head. _("How humorous if would be if that were the case.")_ And with that, he teleported to another dimension.

* * *

_And so, the Eight Heroes had all been captured in the course of a single day..._

* * *

(A/N) All eight of the original smashers have finally been introduced! And now, the REAL action begins...are you ready?

Keep in mind that I have never played a Star Fox game in my life, so I had to keep checking the Star Fox wiki just to get all the facts right! I hope I characterized everyone okay and kept true to the game's timeline. And yes, Pikachu's enemy is Mewtwo! He's probably the most evil of any Pokémon, considering how he was the result of a failed experiment to clone Mew's DNA. If I found out that_ I_ was an experiment gone wrong, I'd be mad too!

References:

- The title was a reference to Andross, a monkey, and Mewtwo, a maniac.

- References to James McCloud and the life of Andross are from Star Fox 64. I decided to add them in to provide a backstory on why Andross is Fox's enemy. I also got the Great Fox's approximate height and weight from the Star Fox wiki.

- According to the nintendo power manga _Farewell, Beloved Falco_, Andross was resurrected briefly 4 years after the events of Star Fox 64. However, this manga was only released in Japan, so you probably aren't familiar with it. I also got the idea of Andross being a disembodied spirit from Star Fox Adventures, when he revives himself with the help of the Krazoa.

- Notice the connection between this chapter and the first? Bowser, the first of the villains, met Andross, the last one, and restores him to his physical form. Andross rewarded him by giving him the bazooka, and then they formed an evil legion to start capturing everyone.


	6. Chapter 6

(A/N) This has been my favorite chapter so far, so I know you guys will love it! I had an embarrassing amount of fun writing this up. xD If only I had this much fun writing term papers! Oh, and just a heads up- this chapter is the longest so far, not to mention the most epic!

Now that we've introduced everyone in pairs, it's time to see what happens when everyone meets each other for the first time! I'm sure it'll put a smile on your face. Oh, and the villains are gonna be meeting up too! Wonder what they're planning...

Thanks goes to Nianque, Kitsune no Tora, Foxpilot, Smash King24, and Souldin for the lovely reviews! :D

* * *

.:Chapter 6: New Found Friends:.

-oOo-

When he woke up, Mario felt as if a jackhammer was driving into his skull. He was lying on the cold floor of a prison cell, unable to move his arms or legs out of the pain constricting his limbs. The weakened plumber forced his eyes open and tried to take in his surroundings, but he could only see a few feet in front of him.

("Mario!") A green figure sprinted over, collapsed onto its knees, and gave him a hug. ("Thank the stars! We thought you were _never_ gonna wake up!")

"Who's 'we'?" Mario asked, half-conscious. He had so many other questions racking his brain- Where was he? What happened? But he could only manage to get out one of them. Reaching out both of his hands, he tried to return the hug that the green figure had given him, but his vision was so blurry, he didn't even know who the creature was. He tried to sit up, but a pair of hands lightly pushed him back down again.

"You might want to lay down for a little while," a sharp voice warned him. "You've been unconscious for the past hour. You might still be in pain."

Now that he mentioned it, Mario _did_ feel like he was in pain- his chest and spine felt they had been forcefully broken in half. He tried to see who the person was that had spoken to him, and as his vision gradually returned a few seconds later, he could make out the facial features of the person before him. He reeled back in shock.

"AHHH!!! Who-a are you?!" The plumber shrieked. The person in front of him wasn't a person at all; he had the characteristics of a fox, complete with pointy ears and a tail. Mario had heard animals talk before, but this one was strangely human-like. The plumber backed up in fear, only to bump into an elf-eared man sitting next to him. "AHHH! I'm surrounded by-a mutants!"

An ape-like creature then strode over to Mario and sat down next to Yoshi. "Don't worry. They look different to you because one's a Vulpian, and the other's a Hylian."

("Yeah, don't panic!") Yoshi assured. ("All eight of us have been captured, so we're all going through the same thing here.")

"There's-a _eight_ of us?!" Mario asked disbelievingly, his confused brain flooding with questions. "And what are you and-a DK doing here?"

("We've all been captured by our enemies, and we're being imprisoned in Bowser's Castle for the time being,") Yoshi explained. ("I guess he ambushed you when you went to save Peach.")

Mario was hit with a brief memory; he was walking to the throne room, had a bazooka aimed in his face, and then the last thing he saw was Bowser's prideful smirk. But what happened after that? Where was Peach? He also recalled that he was about to have a lunch of pasta yesterday, and the thought of it made his stomach growl.

"You're hungry, too?" A pink blob asked aloud, waddling over to Mario and plopping down carelessly on Fox's tail. "It must've been hours since any of us have last eaten! I tried to eat that mouse over there, but it said no." He pointed a stubby hand towards a yellow creature, which was sitting in the lap of what appeared to be an orange robot.

("And if I hadn't shocked him, he would've done it, too!") The mouse snapped. It looked like a small, yellow creature with pointed ears, a jagged tail, and unusual red markings on its face, as if it were blushing.

All these newcomers started to make Mario feel dizzy. "Where-a am I?" he asked, feeling like he was going to sink back down on the floor again. He felt like he was in a dream- humanoid foxes? A talking puff ball? What was going on here?

The humanoid fox from before scooted closer to Mario, holding his tail gingerly. "You look confused. I think we should all introduce ourselves," the Vulpian volunteered, holding out a paw. "I'm Fox McCloud. Leader of a mercenary unit, not much else." He wasn't too happy about his tail, which still hurt from Kirby sitting on it.

Next, the Hylian turned to Mario and held out his hand too, which the plumber gratefully shook. "I'm Link, and I come from a land named Hyrule. I specialize in sword fighting, taking down evil wizards, saving princesses...the works." Mario thought that he and Link had a lot in common with the 'saving princesses' part. In the back of his mind, he also wondered what happened to Peach, and where she was right now...where did Bowser take her?

The talking pink blob then sat down again, and this time, he decided not to plop down on Fox's tail. "Sorry for my bad manners from before. My name's Kirby! I come from a planet called Popstar, and I live in a country named Dreamland. We do get a few nightmares occasionally, however." Mario shook his stubby hand, wondering what he meant by the 'nightmares.'

The yellow mouse trotted over next, sitting down between Kirby and Yoshi. ("I'm Pikachu, a species of Pokémon. I come from a continent known as Kanto, where creatures like me are captured by Pokémon trainers and battle against each other for fun. It's interesting, to say the least.") Mario had never heard a Pokémon speak before, but somehow, he could understand what it was saying.

"Shall I come out now?" a mysterious voice asked. Mario looked around for the source of the noise, and his eyes rested on the orange, robot-like suit of armor sitting in the corner. Suddenly, a flash of green lit up the helmet's visor, and Mario jumped, screaming for his life.

"Samus! Must you scare the living daylights out of him?!" Link scolded. He lifted up his pointed hat to allow two orbs to fly out, which lit up the room with a blue and yellow hue; this allowed everyone to see more clearly.

Samus stood up and walked over to Mario, sitting down next to Link. "All right. My apologies, Mario." She then took off her helmet, revealing a young woman with flowing blonde hair. "I'm Samus Aran, and I like being single, so don't ask." Mario thought she had a strange sense of humor. The rest of the group just looked at her in shock; they had no idea that there was actually a person under that cold-looking exterior.

"So, what are we going to do now?" DK asked. "I mean, we can't just sit around in here and rot, can we? Look around us...we're practically in prison."

("And we probably won't get to eat any food until we find a way out of here...") Yoshi sighed hungrily.

"No food?" Kirby gasped, holding a hand to his heart. "I'll whither away!" Everyone rolled their eyes at this statement.

"He's right," Fox nodded, trying to stand up straight while holding his sore tail at the same time. "Some of us have faster metabolisms and could probably only last a day without food. We need to find a way out of here, and fast."

Without warning, Samus got up from her reclining position and started tapping the walls. Mario and Link raised their eyebrows, and the rest of the group just stared, wondering what the bounty hunter's motives were.

Samus felt the room grow quiet, so she turned around. "In case any of you were wondering, I was finding a weak spot in the wall," she stated dryly. "And it seems that there's one...right..._here_." She indicated a brick in the wall by hitting it with her the gun on her suit, which made a hollow sound on impact. "We're gonna need someone to break this."

"That would be my job!" DK volunteered. He got up and swung his arm around backwards in a circular motion, walked over to the spot that Samus indicated. Yoshi and Pikachu exchanged worried glances as DK shot his fist out, which smashed through the wall as if it were a pile of Jenga blocks. Everyone ducked and covered their eyes, hoping that they wouldn't be pelted by flying shards of brick.

Once the smoke cleared, everyone could see the impact that DK's fist made through the wall. ("That...was..._awesome_!") Yoshi exclaimed. Kirby, on the other hand, looked a little shaken up. "I really hope that nobody heard _that_ in the nearest ten-mile radius!"

Pikachu shivered at the thought, hoping that their captors didn't know what just happened. ("I actually kind of agree with the talking blob over there. Someone had to have heard the wall shatter, so we'd better move fast!")

"Do you think we'll all be able to fit through that hole?" Link asked, sounding worried. His question scared Mario, who didn't look too confident himself.

"I don't know about you guys, but I wanna get outta here as soon as possible!" Kirby ran over to the wall, inflated himself, and floated through the opening before somersaulting into the room outside. "Let's get moving before anyone catches us!"

"Fine with me." Samus curled up into her Maru Mari form and rolled up the wall with ease. Mario's eyebrows shot up as she joined Kirby on the other side.

"She's just a bit of a show-off, Mario," Link laughed before climbing after Samus. "Don't worry about her."

DK realized that the hole he made in the wall was a little too high for the smaller smashers to reach, so he helped Pikachu and Yoshi climb up before going through himself. Luckily, his fist had made the opening just big enough for him to get through.

Mario and Fox remained behind, the latter of who insisted on being the last one out. Seeing how everyone else made it through, the plumber looked nervous, since he was guilty of being a little overweight. Fox noticed his pale expression and put a hand on his shoulder. "You'll be fine," he reassured. "And if anything happens, I'll be here to help you. We're a team now, after all."

"You're-a right," Mario nodded, trusting his new partner and trying to feel a little more positive. "I can get-a through fine." He made a mental note to treat his new friends to a dinner of pasta once he got out of here. He also hoped Luigi was okay...

Mario pulled himself up the wall with his gloves, trying not to scrape his hands on any shattered pieces of brick. The plumber slowly climbed upwards; that is, until he couldn't move anymore. Uh-oh. "Guys! I'm-a stuck!"

"Don't worry! I'll push you through!" Fox proclaimed as he grabbed Mario's boots and pushed with all his might. Unfortunately, nothing happened; Mario was stuck like a fly in a spider's web. On the other side of the wall, Samus turned around to see Mario, his body still in the cell and his arms and head sticking out. She ran up to him and started yanking his hands, followed by DK, Link, Yoshi, Pikachu, and Kirby. Together, they formed a chain, pulling on Mario as if they were playing tug-of-war. Even from the other side of the wall, they could hear Fox's metallic boots scraping across the floor.

"Ouch-a! Guys, can't you-a find another way-a to pull me out?" Mario pleaded, his stomach hurting from being pushed between the two rooms. Thinking of an idea, DK let go of Samus' back and walked up to where the plumber was stuck, scanning the wall for any further weak points. All this pulling was weakening its structure, and this was exactly what DK wanted. He started punching the area around where Mario was trapped, causing more parts of the wall to crumble away.

On Fox's side of the wall, two Koopatrols had heard the ruckus and came downstairs to investigate what was going on.

"The prisoners! They're escaping!"

"Bowser will have our heads on a platter if we let them get away!"

The Vulpian started to panic, shouting out to Samus and the others, "Throw your weight into it! Bowser's guards are coming!" They pulled with all their might on Mario's gloves, and thanks to DK for weakening the wall, Mario was able to be pulled through easier.

When he finally came out on Samus' side of the wall, he caused all six of them to tumble backwards. Since Kirby and Pikachu were less heavier than everyone else, they fell on their backs, groaning with pain about their sore limbs. Fox then jumped through the wall shortly after Mario and landed safely on the other side, trying to slow down the Koopatrols by shooting them in the helmets with his blaster.

"Guys, we've got to go! NOW!" he urged, pulling everyone up by the arms and helping them to stand on both legs (or in Kirby's case, both feet.) Mario ran over and held the door to the next room open, and the octet took off before the Koopatrols could retaliate and charge at them. They had made it out just in time...

-oOo-

Somewhere on the top floor of Bowser's Castle, the Koopa King himself was organizing a meeting with the members of his evil legion.

He had recruited K. Rool, Ganondorf, Ridley, Kamek, King Dedede, Dr. Andross, and Mewtwo to help him get rid of those eight heroes- once and for all. Divided, their defeat was inevitable at the hands of their rivals, but together, they could take down every last one of them. And they'd done it, too- all in the course of a single day. Needless to say, Bowser was as gleeful as he'd ever been. Thanks to his leadership, the legion had successfully captured their enemies. Now the only thing left to do was torture them in the most awful way possible and kill them.

"Good afternoon, everyone!" Bowser chuckled, directing the legion's attention to the chair at the end of the room. "Yesterday was certainly a blast, wasn't it? I must say, I'm impressed. All eight of us did what we needed to do without any problems whatsoever!" Bowser paused, stopping to look at each one of them. "What did each of you do to capture your respective 'hero'?" he asked, saying the word 'hero' as if it were the most disgusting thing ever.

"Heh, it was easy!" K. Rool snickered. "DK was practically a sitting duck when I found him. I was in my tower, which my henchmen made to be durable enough to withstand cannon fire, yet able to float on water," he bragged. "I shot towards Donkey Kong Island in a heartbeat, and there he was, relaxing on the beach, sipping on one of those poisonous banana milkshakes." The obese crocodile shook his head. "All I had to do was shoot a freezing gas out of my blunderbuss gun, and he froze on the spot while trying to run away." He snickered as he recalled what happened. "It was almost _too _easy."

"It was a real cinch for me too," Ganondorf laughed darkly. "Since I had heard about Link and Zelda wanting to have a picnic, I kidnapped Zelda and took her into the Lost Woods. Of course, she started screaming, so Link heard it from Hyrule and came running into the forest on his mare." He put a hand to his chin, trying to remember what happened next.

"My plan went perfectly. I then created a portal as a gateway to this castle and shoved Zelda through it right before Link arrived. I transformed into my animal form at the last second, and Link appeared, angry as ever. It was pretty humorous." The King of Evil stifled a laugh. "And then, I eventually learned that he wasn't much of a threat, so I feigned a sword fight with him and punched him in the gut." Ganondorf shook his head, as if he were pitying Link. "He went down in seconds, so I knocked him unconscious and brought him here."

"It's kind of sad, really," Ridley commented. "I created an atomic bomb and carried it down to the caves of Norfair on planet Zebes. It was a perfect distraction for Samus, so I hid in the shadows and watched as she managed to crawl inside and deactivate it. When she came back out, I had her in the palm of my hand, literally." The space dragon stared at his claw, not yet believing that he had really defeated Samus.

"But then she turned around and fired a wave beam through my wing, tearing right through it..." A few of the legion members winced at this statement- "So I decided I'd have to cheat, and I picked her up and slammed her against the wall, knocking her out."

Kamek zoomed closer to the ground on his broomstick, holding his wand high in the air in a victory pose. "That stupid Yoshi didn't even make it a mile away from his house!" he chortled. "All I had to do was hide in the trees, and he came outside, singing and skipping around like there was no tomorrow. I zoomed towards him and shot out a magic spells to turn objects into my minions, and I sent them after him.

"He was outnumbered, so he tried to catch me with his tongue. I shot a numbing spell on it when his mouth was open, so he couldn't eat any of the Goombas or Koopas I sent after him. They overwhelmed him, and I bagged him up and brought him here. It was almost a shame to ruin his happy little day!" he cackled, almost falling off his broomstick from laughing so hard.

King Dedede then raised his mallet and slammed it down on the ground, startling everyone. "I'd had enough of dat dere Kirby, so I was sitting in my throne room, pleading for someone to help me..." he said, wanting to see everyone's reactions. Most of them were still shaken from him slamming his mallet.

"Then, some sort of black haze came into the room, and it went into my head, somehow giving me the powers needed to catch Kirby. Didn't know what it was, but I didn't complain! So, I found Kirby walking around Dreamland, and I startled him, just as I had startled you with that hammer trick. I knocked him off his feet and he tried to swallow me, but when I got close enough, I knocked his block off and sent him flying into a tree. He didn't know what hit him!" A few of the legion members chuckled at the way Dedede talked with his southern drawl.

It was now Andross' turn to tell his story. "Thanks to Bowser, I was reunited with my physical form. With the help of Kamek's magic, he used a wand to turn me back into what I used to be, and then I knew that I had to make it up to him." Andross glanced over at Bowser, who nodded in approval. "So, with my help, we were able to contact the rest of you to join us. I invented a bazooka that would help Bowser catch the oldest hero, known as Mario. Apparently, he made good use of it and successfully managed to knock Mario unconscious."

This gave Bowser a major ego-boost, not that he didn't get enough of them already. "Thanks to this genius, I was able to defeat my worst enemy. Otherwise, I probably would've been struggling to kill Mario until I was 80, in human years."

Mewtwo floated into the air, his eyes glowing a fiery purple. He didn't move his mouth to speak; he conversed with the group telepathically. "It was simple enough. I'm a level 70 Mewtwo, so capturing that under-leveled Pikachu was an anti-challenge. I used my powers to start a forest fire to keep Pikachu from running away; not even the pitiful creature's strongest attack, a thunderbolt, could significantly damage me. I decided to end it quick and give it a shadow ball to the face. The end." His aloof nature and blunt descriptions made the rest of the legion feel wary.

"Okay then..." Bowser said, stepping closer to the group while trying his very best to avoid Mewtwo. "Now that we've all gone over how awesome we are for capturing those fools, I want to take this time to explain to you what we're going to do with them..."

-oOo-

Once the octet made it safely outside the prison, they almost keeled over from the physical exhaustion of pulling on the overweight plumber and running from the Koopatrols.

But as soon as they saw what was inside the next room, they knew that they wouldn't have any time to relax. For one thing, the room felt like a furnace; lava poured out from holes in the walls, making the temperature higher than it had any right to be. A narrow metal walkway was the only way they could make it to the other side, and it didn't look too sturdy.

Mario quickly dashed to the front of the group, leading the way; he knew Bowser's Castle like the back of his glove. "We've-a got to be careful. We're-a still in Bowser's Castle, and this bridge will-a collapse if we walk over it," he explained. Yoshi was right behind him, directing everyone to stay away from the pools of lava on either side of them.

Fox was the first to respond. "So basically, we're still in prison?" Mario nodded, causing him to groan. Not only was Fox tired from helping Mario get through the wall, but his tail still hurt from Kirby sitting on it.

Speaking of Kirby, the poor pink blob was practically melting. "This place is hotter than the volcanoes on Neo Star!" he moaned, wiping the sweat off his forehead. Seeing how everyone gave him strange looks, he replied, "Oh, it's a really hot planet near Popstar."

("Well, if this thing's gonna collapse, how are all of us are gonna get across at once?") Pikachu asked, peering over the edge of the walkway and getting scolded by Yoshi to stay away from the lava.

Mario rubbed his chin, thinking of what they could do to make sure everyone made it across safely. "We're-a gonna have to-a run as fast as we can. DK, you hold Kirby and Pikachu; Link and I will ride across on Yoshi, and Fox, you hold Samus in her ball-form. The less of us-a that are walking across this thing, the better-a." To his relief, the group reorganized and did exactly what he suggested. _'I might have just met them today,'_ Mario thought, _'but they make a great team.'_

DK picked up Kirby and Pikachu and held them in each of his fists as he carefully dashed across on two legs. Yoshi galloped while Mario and Link held on for dear life, and Fox held the morph-ball Samus close to his beating heart. Just as Mario said, the bridge fell apart in pieces behind them, sinking into the lava with a hot splash. They had successfully made it past the furnace-like room.

"Uh, Mario?" Link asked, climbing off Yoshi's back and trying to keep up with the rest of the group. "I've been wanting to ask you...who is this 'Bowser' person, exactly?" He had previously thought that Ganondorf was behind all this.

"Oh, that's easy to-a answer," Mario chuckled. "Basically, he's a giant fire-breathing-a turtle with-a more spikes on his back than you can-a shake a stick at. He-a started his rivalry with me since-a the day I was born, literally! Then, it got even-a worse when I met Peach. She's-a my girlfriend, and she's the loveliest, prettiest girl I-a ever met...but she's a little stupid, so she gets-a kidnapped by Bowser all the time-a."

"That sounds a lot like what I have to go through," Link laughed. "As I mentioned before, I come from a country called Hyrule, a beautiful land filled with all kinds of strange animals. Most of the citizens living there are good, but some are bad, like Ganondorf, a dark wizard from a tribe called the Gerudo. My trusty mare Epona and I have had to save Zelda more times than I can count!"

"That actually sounds nice," Samus remarked. "Both of my parents died in pretty much the most brutal way imaginable. I grew up to be a warrior and had to work for money in the most legal way possible without getting a job. Bounty hunting sounded fun, so I thought I'd sign up for that. Fortunately- or unfortunately, in my case- I was just a little too good, so they sent me back to Zebes to rid the planet of the Space Pirates and their creation, the Mother Brain. I disintegrated her, so Ridley, the leader of the Space Pirates, has been after me ever since to win back these creatures called metroids, which he wants to use as weapons. He was the one who killed my parents, so I'm going ahead mercilessly."

("Hey, at least you guys have interesting stories to tell!") Pikachu piped up. ("See, I'm just an ordinary Pikachu. I live in a world where other creatures like me are captured by humans inside devices called Pokéballs. We are considered to be forces of nature, so we have supernatural powers. For example, I can shoot electricity out of the red marks on my face. I'm just like any other Pokémon, really, but for some reason, this creature called Mewtwo attacked me out of nowhere. He said he had to capture me because of something he predicted...wonder what that was all about?")

"It must be nice to live a quiet life like Pikachu- mine's been hectic! I guess I'll tell you guys a little about me," DK nodded, crossing his arms. "My grandfather had quite a past with Mario. He always used to kidnap Pauline, Mario's old girlfriend, and throw barrels at the poor guy! After I was born, he taught me to do the same thing, because he had a rivalry with Mario that almost matched Bowser's. I used to kidnap Pauline for a while too, but eventually I put aside my old ways. I didn't want to end up like my grandfather- he's always cranky, hence the name Cranky Kong. I made friends with Mario, changed my life around, and met a girl named Candy. Now I have a heck of a family to take care of...it's gotten easier since I defeated K. Rool, but still...never a dull moment!"

("Sounds like fun!") Yoshi said cheerfully, glad to finally get a turn to tell his story. ("When Mario was only a baby, he fell from the sky and landed near my home, along with a map to Bowser's Castle. From what I could understand at the time, a wizard named Kamek had kidnapped his brother, Luigi, and taken him to Bowser's Castle. Once Kamek had learned that they were the future heroes of the Mushroom Kingdom, he planned to kill them, but with the help of my friends and I, his plan failed. The reason Mario and Luigi are alive today? All thanks to me!" Yoshi struck a pose, making everyone laugh. ("You're up, Kirby!")

"Hehe..." Kirby grinned shyly, rubbing the back of his head with a hand. "Well...as crazy as this sounds, some people on my planet think I'm an alien. There's not many other Kirbies out there, but anyways, I'm a citizen of Dreamland, and recently, I had to fight against a creature called Dark Matter. He's a living gas ball of evil who possessed all my friends, so it was up to me to turn 'em back to normal. King Dedede also went on the adventure with me, but we still share a rivalry. Still, I wonder what he brought me here for..."

"You guys are lucky compared to what I went through," Fox sighed, causing everyone to quiet down. "Andross...murdered my dad. Or at least, that's what the reports said. He was the only family I had, so I was destroyed inside when I found out. Nearly killed myself. One of my dad's lieutenants, Peppy Hare, pulled me out, and we recruited my friends, Falco and Slippy, to form the new Star Fox team in memory of my dad. On my most recent adventure, when I was out to kill Andross on a planet called Venom, I saw...my dad. He spiritually guided me and saved my life. Andross self-destructed and supposedly died, but apparently, he's been revived..."

"Hey, don't feel so bad," Link reassured. "My parents were murdered too, along with Samus'. Don't feel so alone when it comes to this, alright?" Link patted Fox on the back, and Samus cocked her head in sympathy.

The group walked forward in a tight circle into the next room, which was pitch black. Every step they took made echoes reverberate against the stone walls. Link reached for his hat and pulled it off his head, causing two blinking lights to come out, illuminating the empty room.

"Hey, Link? What are those?" DK asked, mesmerized by the floating blue and yellow orbs with wings.

"These are my two fairies, Navi and Tatl. Cute, aren't they?" Link beamed, humming a little song. For some reason, the tune of it sounded familiar to Mario in an alienated way.

"Yeah!" Kirby agreed. "Do fairies taste good?" At this, everyone snickered. Leave it to Kirby to think about eating at a time like this.

"Speaking of-a eating, I'm going to-a treat you guys to pasta when we-a get out of here," Mario laughed. "You guys-a deserve it for-a getting me out of that stupid-a hole in the wall!"

("Ohboyohboyohboyohboy...") Yoshi was practically drooling. ("I can just smell it now! I _love_ pasta!") Kirby grinned and did flips in mid-air; after hours of being imprisoned, he was practically starving. Pikachu was warming up to the idea as well; since it loved ketchup, it would probably love tomato sauce too.

"Now that you've mentioned getting out of here, where are we going to go after this?" Samus inquired. "My ship is probably still on Norfair. I have no way of getting back home."

"Same here," Fox replied. "My teammates are still back on Corneria, along with my Arwing...I don't know if any of us can get back to where we came from, save for Mario, DK, and Yoshi."

"I'll-a explain once-a we get out of here," Mario answered. "I don't want to-a say anything out loud; Bowser and the others who-a kidnapped us might-a hear our plans and-a ambush us."

As soon as he said that, an intercom turned on, creating a loud screech. Pikachu and Fox instinctively held their ears; they were especially sensitive to loud noises. Then, the speakers blared as a spitfire voice rang out:

**"Hello, Mario! Fancy seeing you here, eh? Just like old times! Bwahahahaha!"** Everyone stopped in their tracks, looking for speakers as they realized that they had failed at trying to be evasive. Mario grimaced and held his fists out, as if Bowser might pop up in the room at any time.

**"Hey there, you stupid monkey! Guess who's not dead, and who's never gonna be?"** DK's jaw dropped; K. Rool in Bowser's Castle too? This didn't sound good. Who else was watching them? A third voice answered that question:

**"Good afternoon, Fairy Boy! What brings you here today? Could it be for _this?_"** As the third voice stopped talking, Link heard Zelda screaming in the background. He unsheathed his sword immediately; he should've known that Ganondorf would bring her here...

**"Greetings, heroine! We'll have great pleasure in destroying the likes of you all, rest assured!"** Samus didn't say anything; she pointed her arm gun up, readying it to fire it in Ridley's jaw if he dared show his face.

**"Kekekeke! Don't worry, Yoshi-baby! It won't hurt that much!"** Yoshi just stuck his tongue out and blew a raspberry. He'd seen more than he wanted to of that old Koopa on a broomstick.

**"Kirby! You're gonna be as good as flattened when I get done slamming you over da head!"** A few chuckles followed, enraging Kirby and causing him to suck in air and inflate. He growled and stomped his feet to look threatening.

**"Little Pikachu, your end is near...but I can assure you your death will be peaceful..."** Even through telepathy, Mewtwo's voice was heard. Pikachu held its ears down and hid behind Samus; it didn't want a re-match with the overpowered Psychic Pokémon anytime soon.

**"Good afternoon, Fox! Ready for the same amount of pain your daddy felt?"** Fox held his tail to his side, shaking with fear at his archnemesis' voice. He was enraged by Andross' comment about his dad, but without his Cornerian teammates, he wasn't ready to take him on like this.

Suddenly, a trap door slid from underneath the octet's feet, causing them to plummet into the darkness below. The last thing they heard before they fell was their enemies' deranged laughter...

* * *

(A/N) If that chapter wasn't epic, I don't know what was. Like I said, I had a tremendous amount of fun typing this up.

I actually don't have any references for you guys this chapter. Many of the ideas, dialogue, and descriptions in this chapter were inspired by a fic I read a few years ago on a different website- you know, the one I mentioned in the A/N in chapter 1? Much credit goes to Zelda'sFox38, the awesome author who wrote that very story and inspired me to write fanfiction! I recycled some of her ideas to put into this one. The result was this very lengthy fic- or at least, it'll be lengthy by the time I get done with it. I'm still not even done part 1 yet!

Next chapter, we're going to see if the eight heroes can pull of their version of 'The Great Escape!'


	7. Chapter 7

(A/N) I'm glad to say that this chapter is going to be another epic one. Think of it as the second part to last chapter, since there's a heck of a lot of action to put in here!

This story has over 700 hits! Thanks for checking it out, readers. Thanks also goes to last chapter's reviewers- Souldin, Foxpilot, Chocolate Chip Cookie, sgt. killshot, Pikachu127, and Kattheamazing for the feedback!

And now what you've all been waiting for- the battle between the eight heroes and legion members!

* * *

.:Chapter 7: Stronghold Showdown:.

-oOo-

As the eight-hero group tumbled down from the trapdoor into the abyss beneath them, each one of them had a different reaction. Mario felt as if he were a lifeless doll being tossed down a laundry chute. DK reached out his hands and spread his fingers, trying to act like a parachute to make it so that he didn't fall as fast as everyone else. Unfortunately, this didn't work, as he was the heaviest of the group.

Navi and Tatl flew from underneath Link's fluttering hat, which he desperately tried to hold onto as he reached out to catch the two fairies. Samus remained silent the whole way down- she'd dropped down into deep caverns loads of times before, so she found no need to panic. Kirby remained calm as well, since he inhaled air to puff himself up as he floated down slowly.

Yoshi and Pikachu, on the other hand, were squealing profusely at the top of their lungs. Fox held his hands over his ears to keep his eardrums intact, trying to figure out a way for all of them to land safely- that is, if there was even a place to land at all.

Suddenly, the group heard a loud plop as DK hit the ground first, making a crack in the concrete floor from his impact. Samus came down next, landing on DK's stomach and rolling off in pain. Mario fell into Samus' arms, causing her to groan, and Link had the fortune to gracefully land on his rear end. Pikachu landed on Yoshi's saddle, knocking the dinosaur to the floor, and Kirby floated down next to them soundly and let out a breath of air, deflating back down to normal size. When Fox came down, DK managed to stand up and catch him. The octet had made it down the 'laundry chute of death' in one piece.

"Hey, Mario?" Samus asked, pushing him off her as she stood up again. "Do you recognize this place?"

But Mario wouldn't have been paying attention even if Samus had a megaphone and was yelling right in his ear. In front of him floated Ridley, who leaned back his giant head and roared in their faces, causing everyone else to cower behind Mario and Samus.

"Wha-wha-what the heck?" Mario shrieked, stumbling backwards to get away from the enormous space dragon while bumping into someone behind him in the process. Shivering, Mario turned his head slowly to see Mewtwo levitating behind him. Using his psychic powers, the legendary Pokémon held Mario up in the air telepathically simply by lifting his hand.

_"So this is the one who started it all,"_ Mewtwo chortled while shaking his head. _"I must say I'm disappointed." _The purple human-like creature then held Mario up by the scruff of his neck, ready to toss him across the room._  
_

"Hey, Mewtwo! Save some of that for me!" a loud voice rang out, causing everyone to turn their heads and see the leader walking into the room- Bowser. It looked like he had stolen a red carpet from somewhere and wore it around his shoulders as if it were a really long cape. Seeing this ridiculous display, the eight heroes snickered to themselves. In front of the other villains, Bowser looked like a complete idiot. The Koopa King reached out a tight fist and slammed it down on Mario's head, knocking him to the floor.

Suddenly, Fox yelped out in pain as something grabbed his tail, hoisting him up in the air upside-down. Everyone gasped as they saw the form of Andross appear, whom was about three times the height and width of the other legion members. As he twisted his head and caught a glimpse of who was holding him, Fox felt light-headed, as if he was about to regurgitate yesterday's lunch.

"How cute," Andross commented, swinging Fox back and forth by the tail. "In this state, he looks just like his father did right before he-"

But the floating simian dictator was cut off short as Link fired an arrow at his nose, causing Andross to cry out in pain. Link had intended for him to drop Fox, but instead, Andross tightened his grip. Almost immediately, someone came from behind Link and tackled the green swordsman to the ground.

"Ugh!" Link grunted, lying face-down on the floor. He turned his head to the side to see Ganondorf standing above him, whom was Zelda's captor and the Gerudo King of Thieves. His aura seemed to glow with the darkness of his own power; afraid of what Ganondorf was planning, Link jumped up and scrambled a few feet away from him so he could stand up safely.

Suddenly everyone gasped as a shower of sparks shot into the air like fireworks and fell to the ground, making them jump out of the way and duck their heads as a wizard in blue clothing zoomed by. "Kekekekeke! Open wide, Yoshi-boy!"

Yoshi groaned; it looked like he was going to be paid a visit by his rival, too. He ducked for cover as Kamek swooped down on his broom, being unlucky enough to get whacked over the head with his wand. He tried to dodge the magician's spells, but since the room was crowded with villains, there wasn't many places for him to go. Eventually Kamek chased him into a corner and fired a numbing spell at his bulbous nose, causing his entire body to lose feeling and freeze up.

King Dedede fell from the ceiling, shaking the floor and causing everyone to fall off their feet. The fat penguin ignored everyone else and went straight for Kirby, mallet raised high. "Get back here, you rotten little gumball!" he bellowed. Kirby waddled for his life and backed up against the wall, Dedede trying to smash down the frightened pink blob as if he were playing a game of Whack-A-Mole.

"Yeah! Pummeling time at last!" K. Rool cheered, charging forward to knock DK down with his bare hands. DK turned around and swung his fist around to prepare a punch for the overweight crocodile, but he was too late; K. Rool was strong enough to pick the ape up and slam him into the ground. DK didn't take too kindly to this greeting and packed blows of fury at his foe's snout, causing them to both get tangled up as they tried to wrestle the other one to the floor.

_"Idiots!"_ Ridley screeched, flapping his wings in an attempt to silence everyone. _"We have a plan to put into action and people to execute!" _Both heroes and villains backed away from him in fear; some even froze in the middle of their battle stances.

"He's right," Bowser chuckled. "This has been going on for long enough. It's time for the finale," he said with a cruel smirk. The tone of his voice sent shivers up the heroes' spines. Could they really escape from an entire legion of villains that matched them in both strength and smarts? Each of them were brainstorming ideas on how they could escape, until Bowser called out, "Minions! Direct these kiddos to..._the torture tubes!_"

Mario sighed and put his hands over his eyes in sheer embarrassment, shaking his head. "He's-a got to be-a kidding me. Torture tubes? That's-a the worst name _ever!_" He thought that some days Bowser could be dumb, but this topped it off. Didn't he have enough intelligence to name his inventions anymore?

Along with Mario, Yoshi was escorted by Koopas, while Link was pushed by Moblins, Samus by Space Pirates, DK hauled away by Kremlings, Kirby pulled along by Waddle-Dees, and Fox and Pikachu simply being carried in Andross' grip or levitated by Mewtwo's telekinesis, respectively. The other legion members followed closely behind them, cackling all the way.

-oOo-

The heroes were then escorted into the next room and were met with eight different tubes, each a different color, depending on who their victim was intended to be. They seemed to be made out of plastic, but at the same time, there didn't seem to be any way to pierce through them from the inside. The octet gasped at the sight of them, realizing that escape would probably be impossible once they got forced inside these things.

Mario gulped. "Eh...I guess he wasn't-a kidding, then...this-a might be a problem..." As an answer to his suspicion, his teammates shivered in fear- or in Samus' case, simply nodded their head.

Bowser was the last of the legion members to walk in, and as he slammed the door behind him, Mario snapped his head around and gave him the meanest look he could muster. "You're not-a gonna get away with this! Never-a have, never-a will!"

"You don't know how bad it's gonna get..." Bowser chuckled cruelly, watching his rival with an evil glint in his eye. "You have _no _idea..."

"You're a filthy scumbag, Andross!" Fox yelled while being bound by his grip. "My teammates will come, and when they do-"

"-I'll crush them, along with anyone else who stands in my way!" Andross interrupted with a harsh cackle, floating next to Bowser.

Ganondorf joined in the laughter. "Ah, parting is such sweet sorrow...isn't that right, Zelda?"

Princess Zelda was dragged out from the back of the room by two Moblins on either side of her, being forced to witness Link's cruel death. Link's mouth dropped in horror; he didn't want her to see him like this. He tried with every fiber of his being to break free from the guards holding him and save her, but it was no use. It's not like he could just cut himself loose and run up to her in a room full of treacherous villains.

"Link!" she screamed, fighting to break free herself. She seemed fine compared to the heroes' physical conditions, but she looked absolutely terrified. Just by seeing Link struggle to break free in vain, Zelda was starting to get teary-eyed.

The legion members rolled their eyes at this display. K. Rool crossed his arms and tapped his foot impatiently. "Can we just get on with it? I'm tired of seeing these lovebirds over here acting all emotional and stuff." The rest of his evil companions murmured in agreement; it was time to put their plan into action and dispose of these heroes once and for all.

Bowser nodded to Andross, who pressed a switch, causing each of the tubes' doors to open. The eight heroes gulped as they were shoved into them, and as soon as the doors shut behind them, they automatically locked from the outside, leaving the victims inside to be left to an untimely fate. Andross then pressed another button, and the traps started activating all at once.

Mario's tube filled up with liquid goop, causing him to groan in disgust. He tried punching the glass with his gloves, which were enveloped in fire, but the tubes were unbreakable from the inside. He knew that escape would be near impossible, but he refused to give up and kept using fire-based punches to see if he could melt the inner surface.

DK's filled up with a purple poisonous gas, causing the ape's eyes to widen in fear and his body to twitch and shake as he tried to avoid breathing in the toxic fumes. He pounded against the glass with his giant fists repeatedly, but it only left his hands and arms sore. Meanwhile, the inside of Link's tube was lined with holes that were occupied by spears, which were slowly starting to close in on him. The swordsman grunted in discomfort as he tried to drill his sword into the tube's inner surface in vain.

Samus' was filled with electricity probes, causing electric beams to cross between both sides of the tube and zap her every few seconds. Samus' suit supplied her with some protection, but she doubted how long the others would last. She wanted to help them, but she knew that if she fired her wave beam, she might end up causing an explosion and killing them all in the process.

Yoshi's was surrounded by plasma rays of magic, which would pulse through and strike him in waves. His body was still completely numb from Kamek's last spell, and to top that off, he would occasionally feel a jolt of electricity, a singe of flames, or a freeze from an ice spell. He hollered in dismay; it wouldn't be too long before his entire body shut down from the magic's effects. His knees buckled and slipped beneath him, causing him to fall on the tube's floor and lay there sobbing.

Kirby's had a sledge hammer jutting from the ceiling of his tube, looking as if it were going to slowly smash the pink ball into a pancake. The tiny pink ball wailed and covered his eyes with his hands, knowing that the hammer was going to crush him into a slow, painful death. Fox's prison was equipped with mini ray-guns that show out red beams, scorching through his fur every time they fired. Fox tried his best not to show his pain, but he couldn't help but cry out every once in a while; the only thing he could do now was hope for a miracle.

But out of anyone, Pikachu was panicking the most. It tried to thundershock its way out of its glass-like prison, but the outer shell would only reflect the attacks, causing them to come back amplified. Pikachu cried in the midst of its own- and everyone else's- unfortunate demise, knowing that it was going to die along with them.

The legion members cackled in glee at their victims' expressions; seeing them all in such hopeless situations was a beautiful sight. They had been plotting to torture the eight heroes into the slowest and most painful deaths possible. And right now, everything seemed to be going according to plan...

-oOo-

_In the hallway outside the very room the legion was laughing in, a pattering of feet was heard as two large groups of silhouettes raced towards the door. _

_"You guys ready for this?" A first voice spoke. Whispers of agreement answered him._

_"I can't wait to see the looks on their faces when we charge in there, karate-style!" A second voice whooped in a surfer accent. His teammates jumped up and down like children, anxious to smash into the room next to them._

_The first speaker chuckled, then reached into his pocket and pulled out something that resembled a walky-talky. "Are you within range of the castle?"_

_"Roger that!" the speaker on the other end of the line said. "The prison chamber is on the bottom floor, correct? We're descending right now. By the looks of it, we should be able to tear down the wall on contact."_

_"Awesome!" the first voice chuckled. "Hehe...this is gonna be so much fun!" He struck a pose in the dark, backing up against the wall as he prepared to charge through the door. "Alright, everyone! On the count of three. One...two...three!"_

-oOo-

After fifteen minutes of torment, the heroes were barely able to stay calm anymore; they were undoubtedly beginning to lose their sanity. Mario's tube was halfway filled with liquid goop, which was up to his knees. The plumber sighed, but said nothing; he knew it wouldn't be long before he was a goner. DK looked close to passing out from the poisonous fumes, and Link's sides were aching from the enclosing spears digging into them. Samus grunted in pain every few seconds, silently wondering when the pain would stop.

Yoshi was feeling woozy from all the spells that kept buffeting him, and Kirby's head was slowly being crushed by the sledge hammer descending from his tube's ceiling. The most lively of the group were Fox and Pikachu; as Fox kept exhaustively trying to dodge the red beams that fired at him from all sides, Pikachu was hopelessly stretching out its hands and knees so it could suspend itself away from the rising sand level. Either way, they knew that the situation was turning dire.

Suddenly, a loud_ crash _echoed throughout the room as the locked door to the exit fell to the ground.

"I think it's about time you guys had some backup!" a voice shouted from the doorway. For a split second, everyone stopped struggling from within their tubes to find the speaker, their eyes widening in awe as they saw who had just walked in.

It was Luigi, followed by Princess Peach. "Hey-a, big brother! Miss me?" the younger plumber shouted, alerting the entire room's attention to the man in green and the princess in pink.

"Mario! When we get you out of there, you better make sure Bowser pays for this!" Peach called out. Just by hearing her voice, Mario literally jumped for joy. Upon seeing his brother and Peach alive and well, he felt a surge of hope. "Weegie! Peach! I'm-a so glad to-a see you guys! Can you-a find a way to-a get us out of here-a?"

"Sure thing, bro!" Luigi ran forward and jumped in the air, landing on Bowser's head and pulling on his horns to divert his attention. The other legion members snickered; surely Bowser wouldn't be defeated by Mario's younger brother, if Mario himself couldn't even face him in battle!

"YOU!" Bowser roared, clawing the air while trying to get Luigi off his head at the same time. "Guards! Make sure he doesn't interfere with our plan!" Two Koopatrols ran out to pull Luigi off Bowser's back; since their king was so tall, it was hard for them to reach, giving Luigi the upper Koopatrols glared up at him in annoyance and started climbing up the spikes on Bowser's shell, but Luigi tossed a couple of green fireballs at them, ending that idea.

Luigi gracefully somersaulted off of Bowser's head, made a beeline for Mario, and punched him out of his prison in a single green flash, shattering it on impact and causing glass to fly everywhere. Peach ran up to greet Mario, and the three friends embraced each other. The other seven heroes smiled; the legion members just gagged.

Now that his friends were here, Mario knew that everything was going to be okay. But could Luigi possibly take on all eight of the legion members? His question was answered by a loud _smash_.

"Yo, DK! You look like you need some help!" someone shouted, taking notice to DK's struggling. The ape lifted his head to see the entire DK Crew standing right in front of him: Funky, Diddy, Dixie, Lanky, Tiny, Kiddy, Chunky, Cranky, and Candy. They had smashed through the wall and were smacking around Kremlings left and right, causing K. Rool to charge after them in an uproar.

Once they had gotten enough Kremlings off their back, the crew came up to DK's tube and broke him out with a team attack, letting the ape free so he could beat up K. Rool. DK embraced them all in a group hug, then turned to his left and punched out Link's glass-like prison. The swordsman thanked the ape and immediately went to find Zelda.

The legion members stopped laughing; things were getting serious now. Not only was Mario, the leader of the heroes, free from his prison, but DK and Link were as well. The villains scattered and chased after them and their allies until a deafening whoosh was heard outside, and suddenly, three large aircrafts crashed through the wall like a hot knife through butter. A voice spoke over an intercom,

"Oh dear, Fox, look at yourself! See what happens when you don't have me around?" An amused voice laughed as a human-like bird dropped from the ceiling. It was Falco Lombardi, here with the rest of the Star Fox team. From within his tube, Fox looked up at them as if they were warriors sent from above. And they practically were.

Peppy Hare and the anthropomorphic avian were able to break the glass of Fox's prison with just a few shots of their ray guns, freeing their leader and inviting him into the free-for-all. Fox went up to Samus' tube and smashed it open, allowing her to come out. She patted him on the back as her way of saying 'thanks.' She turned back to the tubes and returned the favor for Pikachu, releasing the hapless Pokémon with a few blasts of her missiles.

Once free, Pikachu jumped on Samus' head and launched itself into the air, landing in front of Mewtwo. The yellow rodent knew it was at a disadvantage because of Mewtwo's superior level and attacks, but that didn't stop it from trying. Pikachu thunder-shocked its own body, coating its fur with an electric shield. As Mewtwo prepared to fire a shadow ball, Pikachu dashed forward, slamming it's electrically-charged body into Mewtwo's chest.

Mewtwo gasped and reeled backwards; he'd never seen _any_ electric Pokémon try an attack like that before. In fact, he couldn't even move; Pikachu's attacked had unexpectedly paralyzed him. Samus ran to Pikachu's side and blasted ice missiles at Mewtwo, leaving the psychic Pokémon both paralyzed _and_ frozen.

After DK had freed him, Link snuck behind the Moblins holding Zelda captive, planning to set her free before messing with Ganondorf. Once he was at a safe distance, he sprung out his hookshot and hit the backsides of the Moblin guards, managing to stun them momentarily and release their hold on Zelda. Link beckoned her over to him and they ran off to take revenge on Ganondorf. With the help of the Master Sword and Zelda's magic, Link figured that they would stand a pretty good chance against him.

Meanwhile, Fox was directing the rest of his teammates into battle, charging after Andross like rabid dogs. Now that they had reunited again, they couldn't wait to tear the monster-sized simian to bits. Wanting to avoid fighting, Slippy Toad separated from his group to free Yoshi, who jumped up in relief at seeing his rescuer. Using his mechanical skills, Slippy was able to break the dino out in mere seconds.

But since Yoshi had been pelted by various kinds magic while in the tube, he felt a little disoriented, walking around in circles and crashing into Bowser and Ganondorf. The two villains turned around in annoyance and tried to chase the little dinosaur, smacking into each other every time Yoshi made an unexpected turn. He was so utterly confused, he even smacked into Kirby's tube by mistake, hitting his head with a loud thump and causing the glass to crack. Kirby kicked the glass open from the inside, causing it to crack even more.

Yoshi mumbled in gibberish to himself, rubbing his eyes as he tried to re-adjust his vision. ("Wh-where am I?") As his eyes turned back to normal, they locked onto Ridley, who was chasing Samus and Pikachu around, trying to whack them with his tail. ("Oh my gosh! That space dragon's trying to kill my friends!") Yoshi said aloud, trying to think of a way to defeat Ridley. Taking in the scenery around him, his brain literally hatched an idea. Yoshi shot his tongue out and gulped down a nearby Space Pirate, turning it into an egg and throwing it at Ridley's hideous maw.

_"What the-"_ Ridley snarled, getting pelted by egg after egg as Yoshi kept on eating his henchmen. The space dragon clawed off the gooey yolk from his face and charged after Yoshi, his talons spread to slash him. ("AAAHHH!") Yoshi screamed, trying to dodge Ridley's hate-filled swipes while running backwards. To make matters worse, he was still feeling dizzy from being exposed to all those magic spells in such a confined space.

"Need help?" Kirby asked from behind Ridley, opening his mouth to suck the draconian monster in like a vacuum. Ridley turned his head to see what was going on and tried to grab Kirby, but the swirling vortex that went into his mouth dragged him in like a tornado, keeping him away from Yoshi like a chain on a dog. Once Yoshi was able to get far enough away from Ridley, Kirby let go of his grip on him, causing him to shoot forward like a rocket and crash into the wall. He soon fell to the floor from exhaustion. He tried to get back up and blast them all with fireballs, but Samus quickly blasted his mouth and wings with ice missiles, freezing them and preventing further movement.

But just before Yoshi and Kirby could congratulate Samus, Kamek swooped down and broke up the friendly reunion. He whacked Yoshi over the head a few more times with his wand, causing the dino to rub his head and growl in frustration. Knowing that there wasn't many enemies left for him to swallow and turn into eggs, Yoshi decided to do the first thing that came to mind: eat Kamek's broomstick.

And he did. As Kamek turned around and was about to assail him with magic spells, Yoshi unleashed his tongue and wrapped it around the magician's broomstick, swallowing it. Turning into an egg, he waited for Kamek to crash to the ground before tossing it in his face. He raised his wand to shoot another round of magic spells at him, but Yoshi quickly shot out his tongue in the blink of an eye and ate that, too. Hitting Kamek with another egg, the Magikoopa fell backwards; he didn't try to get back up after that.

King Dedede was the last villain left standing raised his mallet one last time and slammed it down, making ripples in the floor and knocking everyone to the ground again. Luckily, Kirby predicted this, and swallowed in air so he could stay afloat and dodge the impending earthquake. Dedede growled; if his mallet couldn't damage Kirby, what else could he do? Since he was tubby, he wasn't very quick on his feet. The last thing he could do was try to jump on him, but Kirby simply landed back on the ground and inhaled him before he got stepped on. Kirby then launched King Dedede out, making him smack his beak against the wall. King Dedede didn't even try to get back up; after all, his villainous companions had all been defeated as well...

At this point, everyone was exchanging high-fives; DK and his family had conquered K. Rool and his entire band of Kremlings; Fox and his team had pinned Andross up against the wall; Samus and Pikachu managed to stop Mewtwo and Ridley in their tracks; Link reunited with Zelda and fatally wounded Ganondorf; and Yoshi and Kirby defeated Kamek and King Dedede with their appetite-inducing attacks. They wouldn't have been able to fight their enemies on their own, but with teamwork, they could do _anything_.

-oOo-

While all this had been going on, Mario was having the fight of his life against Bowser. He knew that his teammates were counting on him to get them out of this forsaken castle; after all, it was his job as the leader of the band of heroes to lead them towards victory, which made him more anxious then he'd ever been in previous battles with his arch-nemesis. Bowser was attacking more ferociously than ever, blowing gigantic waves of fire at the plumber without giving him the chance to scramble out of the way. Mario quickly grabbed a nearby Koopatrol and used him as a shield, making the fire swarm around him instead of directly burning him.

Bowser stomped his foot in frustration, causing bits and pieces of the ceiling to fall down; he was far from done. He breathed another fire formation at Mario, creating a ring of fire around the two. Mario couldn't escape now, but he also knew he couldn't give up. Everyone was counting on him, especially...

_'Peach!'_ he thought. _'I'd totally-a forgot about her. Is she-a okay?' _He turned his head to see an outnumbered Luigi battling against a group of Koopatrols trying to take her away, which made his blood boil. Mario turned to face Bowser again and ran forward, knocking him in the jaw with an uppercut before he got the chance to breathe another fire attack.

"ARGH!" Bowser roared in frustration. "There's no way I'm letting a plunger-boy like _you_ beat a king like _me!_" He held out his claws and tried to grab Mario, but the plumber jumped on his head instead, using it like a platform to hop over the surrounding circle of fire. Mario ran up to Luigi and Peach and attacked the Koopatrols trying to carry her away, punching it in the helmet with a fiery glove and grabbing it by the tail. He swung it around in circles similar to how he'd done to Bowser, throwing the Koopatrol through the flames and hitting its leader on the face. The Koopa King was knocked back a few feet, rubbing his sore snout while complaining about how plumbers always seemed to win.

At that moment, a bruised and beaten Kamek zoomed in on his broom, landing on the floor next to Bowser. "Um, your royal wretchedness? We have a problem..." he whispered. At that moment, the fighting started to die down, and everyone remained silent so they could hear what he had to say.

"Well, what is it?" Bowser grumbled, tapping his foot. "I'm kind of busy beating someone up right now!"

"The...the building's about to collapse," Kamek muttered, causing everyone to look up at the crumbling ceiling. Apparently, the amount of fighting that took place in here was too much for the room to handle.

"Everyone kept ramming into the walls, and the supports are about to-" Kamek began, but was cut off by rumbling noises. The floor beneath them began to split, and chunks of rocks fell from the ceiling. "Let's get out of here!" the Magikoopa shrieked, disappearing into the air with a wave of his magical wand. Andross and Mewtwo teleported away with a snap, leaving Bowser, K. Rool, Ganondorf, Ridley, and King Dedede to fend for themselves.

"Don't worry, I can get us out of here!" Ganondorf shouted above all the chaos and pandemonium. "I'll transport us somewhere safe. Hehehe...let's forget about fighting these guys. We're done here." Using his magical triforce powers, he managed to create a dimensional rift to move the remaining legion members out of the building.

Bowser's previously worried face was replaced with amusement, and before stepping through the rift, he guffawed, "Bwahaha! Let's see you heroes get out of_ this_ one!" He walked forward and was teleported safely to another dimension.

Unfortunately, the heroes had no magical ways of getting out of the room. Everyone was quiet, watching and waiting to see if anything would happen. Another rumble shook the floor, making everyone gasp or squeal in terror. Mario, Yoshi, Luigi, and Peach were running around while looking for an escape route; DK gathered his crew into a tight circle; Link paired up with Zelda and held her closely; and Pikachu and Kirby started wailing in fear while holding onto Samus.

Fox was the most collected person in the room, so he decided to take matters into his own hands by asking his teammates for help. "Fox, we're going to have to get everyone into the arwings," Falco explained. "It's our only hope of getting out of here!"

"Gotcha!" Fox replied. "Listen up, everyone! We're gonna split up into groups to make this work. Mario and company, you come with me and Falco. DK and crew, you go with Peppy. And Link, Zelda, Samus, Kirby, and Pikachu, you go with Slippy. Now let's move out!"

Everyone broke up into their respective groups, piling into the arwings as if they were safety hatches protecting them from the horrors of the outside world. Falco, Peppy, and Slippy were able to get everyone to fit within a few minutes.

"Has everyone been accounted for?" Fox asked, trying to stay calm before he boarded along with the rest of his group.

"I think so," Falco replied. "You called out everyone's name, correct? I don't see anyone else around here. If we're gonna get out of here unscratched, we've gotta do it now."

"Alright," Fox concluded. He jumped into the open hatch on his arwing for him and Falco, who closed it behind them. Fox sat in the pilot's seat before turning on the ignition switch as Falco took the seat next to him as co-pilot. Along with Fox and Falco, Peppy and Slippy ignited their arwings at the same time and rose into the air. Together, they zoomed out of the collapsing castle merely seconds before it crumbled in on itself, leaving half of Bowser's entire domain in pieces. Everyone within the arwings cheered and applauded their pilots, eternally grateful to them for saving their lives in what seemed like an inescapable situation.

Falco leaned back in his seat and chuckled, reaching out to pat his teammate on the back. Upon seeing Fox's expression, though, he decided not to. "Eh? Fox, what's wrong?"

"I don't know..." Fox murmured, rubbing the back of his head. "I just feel like we forgot something..."

"It's probably just your nerves," Falco reasoned. "Saving a whole load of innocent people at once_ is_ pretty nerve-wracking."

"Hmm...maybe you're right," Fox agreed, nodding his head once while re-directing his focus on the skies.

The three arwings soared across the horizon, searching for just the right place to settle down for the night. Along with a lot of help from their allies, the eight heroes had saved the day once again.

* * *

(A/N) Don't worry- despite what the last line says, this isn't the last chapter. I plan on making three parts for this story and eight chapters for each one. This means that there is only one more chapter until Part One is over, so I'm not even halfway done yet!

This chapter was really hard to write, because it's pretty hard to do fight scenes for all eight heroes and all eight villains. If you guys spot any mistakes, don't be afraid to point them out if you review.

But just because the fight is over doesn't mean our heroes are safe just yet...you'll see! Fox hints at it in his conversation with Falco about him feeling like he 'forgot something.' Or maybe is it some_one_? I can hardly wait to see what everyone's reaction will be after the next chapter!

References:

-The chapter title is the name of the 'last level' of Donkey Kong Country 2. However, 'Stronghold Showdown' isn't the level where you fight against K. Rool; it's not even considered a real level. Diddy and Dixie try to rescue DK in this level, but K. Rool's ship, The Flying Krock, kidnaps DK before you can rescue him.

-I took pretty much every attack, ally, and enemy from Super Mario 64, Donkey Kong 64, LoZ: Ocarina of Time, Metroid 1 and 2, Yoshi's Island, Kirby and the Crystal Shards, Star Fox 64, and the Pokémon series.


	8. Chapter 8

(A/N) Woo-hoo! This is the last chapter to the first part! Sorry it took so long to write- from June 5th to 20th, I was on a trip in Australia for two weeks.

In this chapter, there won't be a battle, but there will be one little twist that might knock you guys unconscious. Seriously, it's that surprising. And it all has to do with the hero who went missing...

Thanks goes to last chapter's awesome reviewers, Nianque, Foxpilot, Kattheamazing, Bouncefox, Chocolate Chip Cookie, and Pikachu127! Also thanks to Kattheamazing for subscribing to my C2!

* * *

.:Chapter 8: The Revelation:.

-oOo-

Mario woke up in a room that was devoid of any decoration or furniture except the bed he was laying in. As he rubbed his watery ideas with his gloves, however, he noticed seven beds in a row to his right. As his eyesight adjusted, he realized that Donkey Kong was in the one next to him.

Looking around further, Mario recognized the place he was in- a Toad House, one of the small inns in the Mushroom Kingdom where people could rest and relax. But what was he doing here? Mario felt as dizzy as when he was thrown into the prison in Bowser's Castle yesterday. And then suddenly, it hit him.

"Bowser!" Mario cried out in shock, fully awake from his brief trip down memory lane. His sudden reaction caused DK to jolt awake. Mario tried to throw the covers off of him in pursuit of his arch nemesis, but a sharp pain in his side stopped him from getting up.

DK sat up in bed, muttering under his breath about his sore neck. "Wh-Where am I?" he asked in a weak voice, feeling just as confused as Mario. "Wh-what happened?"

Pikachu's ears twitched from hearing the sounds of Mario and DK's aimless chattering. ("Morning already?") Pikachu mumbled, picking its head up and lazily scratching an ear with its foot. It crawled out of bed and went over to wake up Samus, who was lying in the middle of the row of hospital beds.

"Where's my tail?" Fox screamed out in horror, having just woke up from hearing Pikachu get up in the bed next to him. He threw his blankets onto the ground in a hurry, fervently searching for his tail. "Oh, there it is. How silly of me..." he laughed sheepishly, blushing bright red in embarrassment.

Link was the next to get up, but he didn't do so quietly. "Where's Zelda?" he cried, reacting similar to how Mario had first been. "Is she okay?"

"Relax, Link!" Mario calmly reassured him. "We're at a hotel. Everyone's safe now." That seemed to calm Link down a bit, but he still seemed jittery.

Yoshi was used to sleeping in back home on his island, so it took him a few minutes longer to get up. ("Good morning, everyone!") he greeted as usual. ("How did you guys sleep?")

"Pretty good," Link replied. "Apparently so good, all of us forgot about what happened last night..."

"I think I know what happened," Samus answered. "After that exhausting fight, we all must've fell asleep while Fox and his guys brought us back over to the Mushroom Kingdom. After that, they must've brought us into an inn to rest for the night. At least, that's my take on it."

"Heh...sorry about giving you guys jet lag!" Fox joked sheepishly. Everyone else had to smile at that, except Yoshi, who suddenly felt like something wasn't right. Why did he feel like someone was missing from this conversation...?

He looked at the bed on his right and his eyes widened. ("Hey guys?") he asked out loud, silencing everyone momentarily. ("Where's Kirby?")

Everyone gasped. Kirby wasn't with them! What would've been his bed was unoccupied.

"But...but..." Fox sputtered. "I saw him right before the arwings took off! He was supposed to go with Slippy!" Everyone shifted their glances from Yoshi to McCloud, wondering how it could've been possible for Kirby to suddenly go missing without reason. Feeling guilty for his disappearance, Fox asked, "What could've happened to him?"

For a moment, nobody said anything. "I have a feeling we'll-a know soon enough..." Mario responded. "Let's not-a worry about him right-a now." He left it at that, feeling that the answer would be sufficient for the time being.

Just then, Luigi, Peach, the DK Crew, Zelda, and the Star Fox Team walked in. Since the room was so crowded, some of them merely stood in the doorway. They looked happy and relieved upon seeing their friends' recovery, but the Star Fox team seemed to be worried about something.

Seeing the confused looks on everyone's faces, Luigi smiled sheepishly and shuffled his feet. "As Mario might've known, you guys are in a Toad House. After we landed, we brought you here to rest up for the night. That battle with your rivals didn't come free- you guys took quite a beating."

The seven remaining heroes solemnly nodded their heads, holding their breaths as they expectantly waited to hear the news about Kirby's fate.

"And as you've also noticed," Falco began, "one of your teammates...went missing." His words seemed to echo off the walls. "I...I don't know if he's still alive or not, but we tried everything we could to get all of you guys out of there. We want to apologize for not living up to our expectations-"

"NO!" Mario cut him off, attempting to stand up on his bed. "You guys-a did an excellent job! It's not-a your fault! If anything, we should-a be thankful to you guys for-a saving us and all of our-a friends! Words can't-a describe how grateful we are to you, so don't-a apologize!" Peach and Luigi walked over to his bedside, taking his side in the 'argument.'

"Yeah!" DK agreed. "We all saw Kirby, too- it's not like you forgot him or anything!"

Link nodded. "We did everything we could, and what happened to him was out of our control."

Yoshi didn't say anything; he was in tears. He had shared so much in common with Kirby- their love of food, their eating-based attacks, and their team cooperation in the battle that went on in Bowser's Castle. He didn't know him for long, but he felt like they were long-lost brothers.

Even Pikachu felt bad. Although Kirby had tried to eat it when they first met, the Pokemon couldn't help but come to like the little pink gumball. He did a pretty good job at keeping everyone in high spirits as they tried to escape from their prison in Bowser's Castle.

Samus cocked her head, not saying anything. She was still trying to process how Kirby could've went missing in mere seconds. She also had a very bad feeling about all of this, but she didn't want to tell anyone just yet. The last thing they needed right now was a reason to panic.

"So how did you guys get out here in the first place?" Fox inquired of his team. "I mean, we live on a different planet entirely, yet you guys found this place within the course of a day."

"I can answer that," Luigi volunteered. "After Mario was missing for a few hours, I decided to investigate Bowser's Castle. Unfortunately, things didn't go very well, and Bowser caught me snooping around and literally threw me out of there. I knew that I wouldn't be able to do anything on my own, so I sent a letter to the Kong family on DK's island and recruited their help. We went back into Bowser's Castle and went into the basement, where the prisoner cells were. In doing so, I found this-" he reached into his overalls and pulled out a transmitter- "on the floor in one of the cells. I turned it on and was able to contact Fox's team."

"Woah," Fox replied, checking his pockets. "He's right. I must've dropped my transmitter down in that prison while I was trying to escape. I didn't even think about using it, since I knew my team would never be able to find me..." he concluded. "But then how did my team manage to get here?"

"It's a long story, but I'll try to explain it as best as I can," Luigi answered. "After I found your transmitter, I went up to the legion's meeting room and found a teleportation device. Apparently, Bowser used it to bring creatures like Andross and Ridley into the Mushroom Kingdom. It was powered by Kamek's magic and teleported them between their worlds and Bowser's Castle whenever they pleased. While the legion was dealing with you guys in the basement, me and the DK Crew went into their meeting room, turned the teleportation device on, and went through it without a problem."

"Kamek's-a magic, huh..." Mario pondered out loud. "Hey, that's another thing that was-a on my mind. When I-a first went to Bowser's Castle, I found out-a that Peach wasn't-a there. Then she was-a with you during the final-a battle, but Toad said she was-a kidnapped..."

"Once again, Kamek's magic," Luigi answered. "Toad was brainwashed by Kamek into telling you that Peach was kidnapped, when she was really safe all along. It was just a trick to get you to go to Bowser's Castle."

("Woah...") Yoshi mumbled. ("Kamek really _did_ get stronger since the last time I saw him...")

"We went through each of the five different worlds it could connect to- Hyrule, Zebes, Popstar, Corneria, and Kanto- looking for all the help we could. In Fox's world, or Corneria, as it's called, we found the Starfox Team and told them about what had happened to Fox their missing comrade. I brought them through to the Mushroom Kingdom, took Bowser's teleportation device, and we had a meeting at my house to plan an ambush on Bowser's Castle. They decided to bring their arwings into the battle as a surprise attack. We agreed to let them do it, so we brought the arwings in via the teleportation device. After that, we immediately set out to rescue you guys." Luigi exhaled, thankful to be done with his long explanation.

"So...any more questions about that?" Peppy asked. Seeing how nobody raised their hands, he breathed a sigh of relief. "Good."

"I think that's a wrap," Falco concluded. "Now, who wants to eat breakfast?"

-oOo-

_While everyone else was running ahead and boarding the arwings, Kirby had fallen behind. His lack of legs and large feet made him stumble over himself, and to top that off, he was still hurt from being imprisoned inside the glass tube and duking it out with King Dedede. Once he tripped and fell face-first on the ground, he couldn't get back up._

_This was exactly what Dark Matter wanted._

_Dark Matter was exactly what its name implied: a floating ball of black gas with fiery, red eyes. Its job was to track Kirby and take care of him as fast and painfully was possible. Some of its previous attempts to kill Kirby involved possessing his friends and turning them against him. It hated him with a passion and wanted him to be blown up into pieces of pink confetti. It knew that its host had lost the battle, but it wasn't going down without taking someone with it._

_But this time, it felt a little different about how to defeat Kirby. After seeing how fast he took care of King Dedede, Dark Matter thought that maybe Kirby could be more useful than he looked._

_Moments before King Dedede had left via Ganondorf's triforce portal, Dark Matter gathered itself, planning to make an escape from its pathetic host. Once it had exited Dedede's body through his mouth, it hid in the shadows, waiting for the perfect moment. After Kirby stumbled and fell over again, Dark Matter clouded around his overturned body, preventing him from moving as he tried to get back up again. Kirby knew that he was caught, but he didn't expect Dark Matter to do what happened next._

_The evil haze entered Kirby's mouth, floating into his mind and settling in without a problem. The result of this was a possessed Kirby, controlled by Dark Matter similar to a puppet being pulled by its strings. Not only had it possessed Kirby, but it _became_ him..._

_And his new mission was to kill the seven heroes._

-oOo-

Five minutes later, the heroes and their friends were seated around a breakfast table, chattering about what went down last night and asking each other about what they were going to eat. Since there were so many of them, the Toad in charge of the house had to pull chairs out of the spare closet.

After everyone had finished ordering their food, there was a short silence. Mario decided to start the conversation again by making a toast to everyone with his glass of orange juice. "To our-a new friends, who saved our lives, and to new beginnings!" he proclaimed. "From now on...we are officially The Alliance!"

Everyone raised their glasses of juice in response, clinking them all together. Then they gulped their drinks down at once- except for Yoshi, whose glass was already empty.

For the rest of the morning, everyone ate their breakfast and talked about what happened over the last few days, trying to get their minds off of Kirby. At one point, Mario burst out laughing, struggling to breathe. Once everyone gave him confused looks, he tried to explain himself. "Looking-a back at all that-a happened yesterday, I-a have to laugh at one thing. I mean, really- 'Torture Tubes?' That's-a the worst name _ever!_" Everyone had to chuckle at that one, too- apparently, their enemies no longer had the intelligence to name their inventions anymore.

Once it was time to leave, the seven-hero group and their friends thanked the Toad innkeeper and walked outside. The sunset was beautiful, a perfect backdrop for the end of a long adventure. It was time to go home now, but everyone promised each other to stay in touch, whether through letters, transmitters, or via the transportation device that Luigi stole from Bowser.

Upon walking outside, Samus gasped. "My spaceship!_ Oh, wow!_" Her orange spacecraft, which looked like a giant sprawling creature of some sorts, was waiting outside for her. "But I left it back on Norfair! How did it get here?" She wasn't the only one who was surprised.

"Epona! You're alright!" Link ran up to his mare and stroked her mane, wanting to see whether or not she was a figment of his imagination. Link lifted up his hat, allowing Navi and Tatl to fly out and join in the reunion.

But by far the biggest surprise outside was the huge aircraft known as the Great Fox. "Alright guys, fess up!" Fox laughed. "How did you get all this stuff out here?"

"I thought we already went over this, Fox!" Falco quipped. "Since we knew that some of you had no way of getting home without transportation, we wanted to give you guys a little surprise."

After seeing their prized possessions for the first time in days, Link, Samus, and Fox were instantly reminded of home and looked as if they couldn't wait to leave. DK, Pikachu, and Yoshi looked pretty anxious to go home too.

Noticing that everyone was starting to get quiet, Mario decided that he would be the first to speak up. "Well...I guess this is-a it, then," he concluded sadly.

("Time for everyone to go home...") Yoshi sniffed.

Everyone nodded their heads in understanding; it was time to end the adventure.

"It's been fun," Link offered. "I will definitely come to visit again one day. This land is interesting, to say the least!" He shook hands with his six new friends, wishing them all good luck.

"I've only known you guys for a few days," DK chuckled, "But now, I consider you all a part of the Kong family!" He then gave everyone a hug, much to their dismay.

Surprisingly, Samus added in a word as well. "I don't know if I'll ever see you guys again...but one thing's for certain," she laughed lightly, "life will be boring without you guys around!"

Yoshi then walked out in front of everyone, looked at each of them in the eye, and ran out to give them all bear hugs. ("I'm gonna miss you guys sooooo much!") he wailed. ("I know I might have just met you all, but now, I can't imagine life without you!") Some people felt bad for the little dinosaur, but a few of them giggled at his tearful display.

"Farewell, everyone!" Fox said, shaking hands with everyone similarly to how Link did. "I have a feeling I'll see you all around someday. I don't know when, or where, but I know we will meet again."

("I feel the same way,") Pikachu agreed. ("We might need each other again someday. Or we could just have a reunion for fun!")

Mario chuckled. "I'm not sure if we'll be able to get everyone together in the same place at the same time, but I'll try to contact everyone soon to see if we can't have one!"

Finally, he, Yoshi, Luigi, and Peach went around and gave everyone hugs (or in Yoshi's case, kisses), promising each of them that they'd stay in touch or come visit. They then stayed to watch everyone leave:

Fox and his team boarded the Great Fox to carry themselves and their arwings home, and using their battle ship's plasma engines, they warped back into the Lylat System.

Samus gave everyone one last look, nodded, and then boarded her spacecraft and flew into the sky.

DK and his crew walked down the lane to the beach, where they boarded the same boat that they had used to get to the Mushroom Kingdom just a day before.

Meanwhile, Link, Zelda, Epona, and Pikachu had to use the stolen transportation device to get back home. Link and Zelda rode through on Epona and raced back to Hyrule.

Pikachu gave a small wave to Mario and his friends, smiled at Yoshi, and merely stepped through the portal and went back to Viridian forest in Kanto.

After Pikachu had left, Mario sighed. Everyone was really gone now, and there was nothing left to do except go home to a good night's rest. He then turned around and walked back into town with his three friends.

Once Peach was back in her castle and Luigi was sleeping at home, Mario walked Yoshi down to the harbor, where he would catch a boat back to his island, similar to how DK and his family had. Seeing Yoshi trot down the pier, Mario had to laugh at the little dinosaur, because no matter how old he would get, he would always be a kid.

Walking back to his house that night, Mario got a strange feeling. Since the sun had completely dipped under the horizon now, Mario could see stars- some of them even seemed to be falling, as if a meteor shower was occurring.

Glancing out his window, Mario saw something large shoot by, followed by a smaller object. Looking closer, he recognized Samus' starship and Fox's arwing zipping through the skies, as if they were playing some sort of imaginary tag. He laughed at the sight of this, until he looked up at the stars.

A message was written up in the sky, saying, '_Hope to see you again!_'

"I hope-a to see you guys again, too," Mario said quietly, then retired to bed. Throughout the night, he dreamt of sweet candies, his new friends, and Peach.

* * *

.:Epilogue:.

-oOo-

Kirby stared out the bleary window of Bowser's new castle, growling as he took in the visual of the entire Mushroom Kingdom. As he shifted his glance between Peach's Castle and Mario's house, though, he couldn't help but laugh at it all.

Moving away from the window, he paced back and forth, trying to think of the perfect plan for how to ambush this new, stupid little 'Alliance' he'd heard so much about.

He'd known about their good deeds, and how they defeated his leader- Bowser- and the rest of the legion members back just a month ago. Sometimes, out of overwhelming curiosity, he'd even sneak out of the castle to spy on Mario and his friends, or use the new transportation device (which was made because of the last one's 'disappearance') to see what the other Alliance members did on their missions. By doing this, he discovered their strengths, attacks, and most importantly- how to tear them apart, one by one.

During one of the times he sneaked out, he couldn't help but notice how undefended Peach's Castle and Mario's house were. The leader of The Alliance lived in a tiny house like that? If that were the case, then the rest of the Alliance members must be totally oblivious to outsiders! The thought that someone as brilliant as Bowser had been defeated by such...such _simpletons _disgusted him.

Kirby shook his head and chortled. "You have no idea what's going to happen to you, foolish heroes..." he cackled. "You have no idea at all!"

* * *

(A/N) Well? Was that a shocker or what? Not only did Kirby go missing, but he turned evil now, too! Once again, I apologize for not updating in almost two months. From now on, I'm going to try to update at least once every month.

I decided to name Chapter 8 'The Revelation' because it was when Kirby was 'revealed' to be evil. It also sounded like an epic end to the first part of the story!

So, what do you guys think will happen next chapter? If you write a review, add in your prediction if you want. It doesn't matter what you predict though, because I can tell you this: NONE of you guys are going to guess what happens next!


	9. Chapter 9

(A/N) And so, part 2 begins! Finally, after eight months, I've finally gotten to this point, and I'm not even halfway done yet! I appreciate all the support, everyone! I probably would've never found the motivation to get this far without you guys cheering me on.

Thanks goes to last chapter's reviewers: Nianque, Foxpilot, and Pikachu 127!

* * *

**Part 2: The Betrayal**

.:Prologue:.

-oOo-

It had been a month since The Alliance's previous adventure, and so far, life seemed to be returning back to normal. Mario and Luigi were bored back at home, since Peach was never kidnapped after Bowser's disappearance. Donkey Kong and his family were living a relaxed life on Kong Island again, not doing much of anything. Link and Zelda never left Hyrule, because they were afraid that Ganondorf might suddenly make an appearance in their absence. Samus was feeling lonely without her new friends, as she predicted, because there were no Space Pirates left to blast with their leader Ridley gone.

Yoshi stayed on his island, spending more time with the other Yoshis to pass the time. Kirby had turned evil and went to join Bowser. Fox McCloud and his teammates were responding to emergencies in Corneria, as usual, but they were less serious with Andross gone. Pikachu was still living in Viridian Forest, always alert that Mewtwo might someday return and wreck its home.

The Legion may have been disbanded for now, but what happened a month ago was far from forgetful. The leader was Bowser, the reason for all of Mario's problems. He had recruited Kamek, Dr. Andross, King K. Rool, Ganondorf, Ridley, King Dedede, and Mewtwo as his cohorts because of their notorious cruelness. The eight of them then managed to capture the eight heroes and nearly succeeded in assassinating them. Thanks to the heroes' allies, however, Bowser's dream was crushed. Everything would've went perfectly for the heroes if it wasn't for Kirby's disappearance.

In short, the seven heroes were bored. With their enemies gone, there wasn't much of anything to fight. Mario felt like this weekend would be a good time to regroup, so he contacted the six friends to meet him at his house for a reunion.

He easily sent letters to DK and Yoshi, but he had to use the transportation device that Luigi stole from Bowser to contact everyone else. Nobody disagreed with his idea, so they all met at his house a week later, whether by boat, horse, spacecraft, arwing, or merely on foot.

Since he lived the closest to Mario, Yoshi was the first to arrive. The two of them had literally been best friends since birth, so Yoshi was sure happy to see Mario again. ("MARIO! It was so boring back at home! I can't tell you how glad I am too see you, I was going crazy back on that island, I almost lost my mind...")

"Glad to-a see you again, too," Mario laughed, giving the dinosaur a hug. Yoshi gratefully returned it.

"Nice to see you guys as well!" a voice said from behind Yoshi. It was DK, and luckily, he didn't have his entire family with him. Not surprisingly, Yoshi ran up to give him a hug, too.

Then, the transportation device started to glow, and suddenly, its portal opened to let out a horse with an elf-eared man riding on it. "?" Link laughed as he leaped off Epona. "I had a hard time convincing Zelda to stay back home in Hyrule. She really wanted to come, but I had to tell her it was just for us. She was afraid Ganondorf might come back in my absence..."

"No worries, no worries!" Mario assured, shaking Link's hand. "She'll be-a fine back at home. We haven't-a seen hide nor-a hair of the Legion members."

"Or scale, or claw...the list goes on and on," DK chuckled. "All is well again. I feel great knowing we don't have to go in a huge battle to fight for our lives right now."

("Hey, guys! Look, look! It's Pikachu!) Yoshi cheered as the transportation device's portal lit up once again to reveal a tiny, bright-colored mouse. Pikachu was like any other Pokemon, but it had shown a ridiculous amount of bravery for how it tried to stop Mewtwo from destroying its home.

("Hi, everyone! Greetings from the most boring place ever- Viridian Forest!") Pikachu laughed as it ran over to join the others. ("I can't tell you how lonely it was back there!")

("I feel the same exact way about where I live, too,") Yoshi chuckled. ("Once you see how interesting life can be in a group of world-savers, everything else suddenly isn't so interesting anymore!") They smiled at each other, thankful that for now, their boredom was over.

"Well, look who's here," Link said, pointing towards the sky. Everyone looked up and watched as a giant, orange spaceship landed a few feet away from Mario's house. The top of it opened to reveal Samus Aran, still in her armor.

"Hey, everyone. Long time, no see," she smiled shyly. Yoshi rushed forward to give her a hug, Samus struggling to push him off of her; she wasn't used to being shone such affection. Before becoming friends with The Alliance, Samus hadn't made friends with much of anyone.

"Sorry I came so late. I had some issues to take care of back at home on Zebes..." Samus explained. "Let's just say the planet was in danger of blowing up again..."

It wasn't long after she had arrived that Fox McCloud touched down on his arwing, looking just as tired as Samus. Nevertheless, he still had enough energy to go around to everyone and greet them individually. "Looks like I was the last one here...ehehehe..." he muttered sheepishly. "There was an emergency I had to investigate this morning, but it's all taken care of now. Did I miss anything?"

"Nope! We were all just-a wondering what we're going to-a do today," Mario answered. "But now that-a everyone's here, anyone up for-a pasta?" Everyone agreed that lunch sounded good right now, so they trailed inside Mario's house, chattering about what each of them had been doing with their lives up to this point and wondering how good of a chef Mario was.

...But far away, in a not so happy place, Kirby was watching the group with a wild madness. He knew that he used to be one of them, but once his mind had been kidnapped by Dark Matter, he viewed this band of 'super-heroes' as nothing but mere pests. Now, his purpose in life was to destroy them in any way possible...

* * *

.:Chapter 9: A Real Shocker:.

-oOo-

The seven Alliance members arrived at Mario's house in a tired wreck, having been exhausted from their earlier duties. Mario immediately went to work on his cooking, while everyone else scattered about and found a place to relax for the moment. There was barely enough room to fit everyone in; luckily, since Luigi had gone off to visit Daisy that day, the house was a little less crowded.

"Hey Mario, can Samus and I use your showers? We're filthy disasters!" Fox yawned as he walked in the front door. Earlier this morning, Samus had had to deal with another bomb threat on Zebes, this time in the shape of a nuclear meltdown in Tourian. Fox also had a rough day, as he had to respond to an emergency from General Pepper at three in the morning. He had only just fixed the ordeal an hour ago.

"Sure-a, go ahead. I'll have lunch-a ready in a little while," Mario smiled, taking pots and pans out of the cupboard to cook with.

Yoshi plopped down in the middle of Mario's living room, feeling bored and hungry- a_ bad_ combination. He looked over at Link, who was shining his sword in an armchair. Yoshi liked to see people do all sorts of things, so he went over to watch him, easily amused. Link pulled an apple out of his pocket and peeled it with his sword, giving it to Yoshi to satiate his hunger for the time being. He finished it in about three bites. Lying on the couch from across the room, DK couldn't help but chuckle at this.

Meanwhile, Pikachu was sitting on its heels in the kitchen, watching Mario cook. It was hoping to see some tomato sauce splatter on the floor or a noodle to eat. Pikachu looked up a bit more, then sat down, tired of waiting to eat.

("Pikaaaaaaa Pikaaaaaaa,") Pikachu whispered, trying to hypnotize Mario into giving it some pasta. The plumber looked behind him to see one very hungry-looking Pikachu.

"All right-a. Here, you go," Mario chuckled as he gave Pikachu some noodles. The Pokemon grabbed them in its mouth and took off in a flash to eat its little before-meal treat. Since Pikachu wanted to enjoy the food in privacy, it went to the back of Mario's house.

Sitting on the wooden floors, Pikachu nibbled on its snack. Its ears were alert, as if someone was going to come up from behind it and steal its pasta. What Pikachu didn't know was that someone was coming to get _it._

Kirby had devised an excellent scheme. He was going to swallow Pikachu, clone its electric powers, and use them to paralyze the rest of The Alliance members. Once that was done with, he'd take them all back to Bowser and claim his reward.

Watching Pikachu through the open window, Kirby waited until the creature finished its snack- he knew how important it was to eat- and jumped into Mario's bedroom, pouncing on Pikachu.

Pikachu tried to cry out, but Kirby's stubby hand covered its mouth. The Pokemon flipped Kirby over on his back, trying to claw its way out of Mario's bedroom, but Kirby shut the door too quickly for Pikachu to escape, swallowing it in before it could counter-attack.

Once Pikachu's powers were cloned, Kirby spit it back out and locked the hapless mouse in Mario's closet. Creeping out of the plumber's bedroom, Kirby sneaked down the hallway and stopped when he heard a strange noise. It sounded like rain, followed by a squeak. Once Kirby figured out where it was coming from, he smirked. It was the sound of the facet being turned off by someone as they finished taking a shower.

And then Kirby got another wicked idea. Water conducted electricity! He would use Pikachu's powers to fry whoever it was that just came out of the shower. He might even be able to do some permanent damage…

Kirby broke the lock on the first bathroom door, rushing in to see who his victim would be. But once he saw who it was, he nearly turned red in embarrassment.

It was Samus. She wasn't naked, but she sure as heck was surprised to see Kirby there. She was about to scream, but Kirby freaked out and unleashed a wave of electricity at her, sending her crashing into the ground.

No one heard the noise except Fox. Hearing the other bathroom door open, Kirby hid in the bathtub and pulled the curtains closed to hide.

Peeking out from behind the door with water still dripping from his fur, Fox saw Samus lying face-down on the bathroom floor and immediately ran over to her. He checked to see if she was breathing, but she wasn't.

"Oh no, oh no…not today…please, Samus, wake up!" Fox moaned in despair. He tried to turn her over on her side so he could see if he could wake her up, but he didn't know what to do. He stood up, about to run outside for help, but when he did, he met face-to-face with one pissed off Kirby.

"YOU!" Kirby growled, tackling Fox out into the hallway. Link heard him thump against the wall and rushed into the hallway, seeing Kirby choking the Vulpian with no signs of stopping anytime soon.

Donkey Kong ran up next to Link, followed by Mario and Yoshi. DK slammed a furious fist into Kirby's body, and the traitor skidded into the other bathroom and landed into the tub. Mario hesitantly walked over to where Kirby landed and glared at him, angered that he would attack them like this.

"Kirby, I-a thought you were-a on our side! You suddenly-a disappeared in the-a final battle, and then you come-a back to seek-a revenge on us and try to-a kill us? Who's side are you-a on?" Mario snapped. Kirby spat right back in his face, defiant even through defeat.

"Samus…" Fox coughed, trying to stand up. "Kirby tried to electrocute her, I think…"

("Electrocute her?") Yoshi asked. ("But where would Kirby get…oh, no! PIKACHU!") he cried out, realizing what happened. He was answered with a "Pika!" coming from the closet in Mario's bedroom. DK ran in and busted the lock on the door, and Pikachu jumped out, unharmed, but looking shaken up with anger.

("Where is that little pink blob? I'm gonna rip him to shreds!") Pikachu growled. Electricity was already starting to spark around the red cheeks on its face, and Yoshi started to panic; the last thing they needed was for someone else to be knocked unconscious.

("Now's not the time to fight, Pika,") Yoshi reminded it. ("DK already knocked him into next week!") Pikachu looked over at Samus' limp form and gasped.

The rest of the group just stood around quietly, not knowing what to say. They turned to Mario for support, who nodded. "Kirby, on-a behalf of me and-a everyone else, you are-a out of The Alliance."

* * *

(A/N) Now that everyone has seen Kirby's bad side, it seems like there's nothing they can do to save him. In this part of the story, the seven heroes are going to try to find a way to turn him back to normal. Will they succeed? Find out!

I know what you're thinking. You probably thought Kirby was a pervert or something for catching Samus in the shower, but keep in mind that he didn't know who was in there. If he did, he probably would've went for Fox instead.

Sorry for making this chapter so short. The action picks up again in the next one, because 'the bad guys' are gonna make a reapparance!


	10. Chapter 10

(A/N) Finally! Chapter 10 is here, and it's only taken me 8 months to get this far! With all the schoolwork I've been having, I'm still nowhere near done this story. At this rate, I'll probably be done sometime in November of next year. xD

Thanks goes to those who reviewed the first chapter to Part 2- Pikachu127, Nianque, doggiefan, Foxpilot, Kattheamazing, and Souldin!

* * *

.:Chapter 10: The Pink Slip:.

-oOo-

_"They did what?"_ Andross hollered at the top of his lungs. He was a big fan of stealth missions, so having heard that this one was a failure was over his head- a good fifteen feet.

"You heard me. That little piece of filth McCloud found out what happened and survived to tell everyone what I did!" Kirby growled. He was just as furious at the Alliance members as he was with himself; now that he had screwed up his first mission, he knew how disappointed the Legion was with him. However, he had at least knocked Samus out for a while, and she was about as powerful as a bullet train.

_"At least you got one of them,"_ Ridley smirked, glad to know that Samus was the lucky victim.

"But what about everyone else?" Bowser mumbled. "We need to come up with another plan..." He crossed his arms and tapped his foot impatiently, waiting for someone else to think of something.

"Ugh...I just say we send out Kirby to do everything. That way, if he gets killed, it won't be that big of a deal," King Dedede huffed, crossing his arms. Even though Kirby was on his side now, he still wasn't too leniant on forgiving the pink blob for ruining his schemes to take over Dreamland.

King K. Rool scowled at Bowser's stupid question. "Keep attacking, of course! We need to be relentless! Kirby, could you perhaps take that monkey out next?" he asked rabidly, spit flinging from his jaws. He couldn't wait to see Donkey Kong again and rip him to pieces of brown confetti.

_("Perhaps we could use another weapon to take care of them...")_ Mewtwo pondered. _("We'll need something that will take them by surprise, similar to how Bowser blasted Mario unconscious with one of Andross' inventions.")_

Having just thought of something, Bowser stood up and walked to the back of the room into Andross' lab. He had all sorts of odd inventions back there; after all, it was him who invented the bazooka gun that Bowser first used to capture Mario. And before the final battle at the bottom of his old castle, one of Andross' potions had increased firepower by five times, allowing him to create the blazing, ring-shaped inferno that he used to face off against Mario in. Hopefully, Andross would be able to invent something good to assist them this time...

"Hey, Andross," Bowser called out from inside the lab. "Do you have any of those potions that you made last month? I was thinking we could use something to help us out..."

"For your fire power again?" Kamek answered. "Hmm, don't you think you should try another attack this time? Mario probably knows how to avoid it by now-"

"Not for me, genius! For Kirby!" Bowser yelled. "Maybe there's something here that make him stronger or something!"

"Ah, thanks for reminding me, Bowser!" Andross said cheerfully. He floated over to where Bowser stood and reached up to grab a purple-colored potion from the top of one of the shelves. "Since Kirby can only get powers by inhaling his enemies, I was thinking that he might need a little something extra to help him do it," he chuckled. "I made this with the help of Ganondorf's magic."

Ganondorf was practically giggling with glee. "Kirby, if you take this, your eating skills will extend so much, you'll be able to swallow all the Alliance members in one gulp!"

Kirby was rather happy to hear this, too. Being almost invincible sounded excellent! He reached forward to grab the potion, but Andross took it back from Ganondorf and held it out of reach. "Sorry, Kirby, but it's not finished yet. However, I could complete it in a short amount of time. Maybe even by tonight..."

"Then it's settled!" Bowser grinned. "Tonight, you'll go back to Mario's house and capture those losers..."

"And then you'll bring 'em back here...so we can kill 'em!" Kamek added with a sinister cackle. He might've been less barbaric than the rest of the Legion members, but he was still insane.

Kirby laughed and added something of his own. "First catching them will be my game, and then they'll be game for catching!" he shouted above everyone else. Bad guys always had their ways of telling bad jokes.

-oOo-

"Thanks for taking watch over Samus tonight, Fox," DK yawned. "I'm mighty tired tonight. Must be because of that long boat trip I took to get over here, and then that whole dilemma with Kirby..."

"It's no problem, DK," Fox replied. "I have to thank you for moving Samus off the floor safely; I'm not much of a weight-lifter. I was afraid I might accidentally drop her," he shuddered. He had volunteered to take care of Samus tonight, mainly because he felt she got injured due to him. He should have hurried out of the shower when he heard those strange footsteps in the hallway, but at that moment, he didn't think much of it. His hesitation nearly cost Samus her life.

DK tousled Fox's ears, then went to sleep in the hallway. Mario had run out of spare beds, so DK had to sleep on the floor. He didn't mind, though, since he liked to stretch out and know that he wasn't going to fall off a bed in the middle of the night.

Fox swished his tail around him and laid on the floor next to the couch Samus was sleeping on. All he had to do was wake up every few hours or so and check on her to make sure she didn't get sick. It wasn't really so hard; since Samus was pretty strong herself, she managed to survive well just on her own.

The first few hours of the night went by smoothly, but around one in the morning, Samus started shivering. She had developed a little fever and would shudder every once in a while. Fox lifted his head up to check on Samus' condition and gave her his blanket, but she was still shivering, so Fox was starting to worry.

"...Kirby..." Samus mumbled in her sleep. Fox looked around him with caution, then returned his focus to her once more. He figured that she was recalling the events from earlier today. He never thought that Samus might have actually been _predicting_ something.

_CRASH! _Something landed out on Mario's front lawn. Fox yelped and covered his ears, which were sensible to loud sounds; meanwhile, Link came creeping into the living room to see what had happened outside. Peering out the window, he gasped in surprise and ran back into the hallway, attempting to wake everyone up.

Fox walked closer to the same window that Link had been standing at for a closer look. He immediately started panicking and ran back over to Samus, trying to wake her up. "Samus, come on! Wake up!" he cried desperately. For a brief moment, he was reminded of a similar situation- when he was trying to wake Samus up earlier today on the bathroom floor. "Please, Samus...just this once...!" He groaned in dismay; it was hopeless.

As a last desperate attempt, Fox hit the Maru Mari button on her suit, and Samus curled into a ball that was small enough for him to pick up and carry away. Holding her tightly to his chest, he looked around the room to make sure it was safe to run, and made it out of the living room just in time before the front door slammed open.

Kirby waddled in, his eyes burning like fiery coals. He was filled with a wild madness, planning on getting revenge on every last one of the Alliance members at the same time. He immediately started throwing furniture around and smashing everything in his path, scouring the kitchen and living room to see who his next victim would be.

Fox was crawling down the hallway, desperate to make it into Link's room. Luckily, the Hylian heard him coming and pulled him into the spare bedroom. "Is that him?" the swordsman whispered. Fox nodded wearily and pulled a blanket off the bed, wrapping it around Samus. He was relieved that the ball form she was morphed into kept her safest, since her suit could set off bombs if she needed to escape.

"We need to get out of here," Fox groaned. He glanced across the hallway at Mario's bedroom door, wondering if he had enough time to save everyone else. Then, he saw DK stir awake as he was picked up be a ghastly wind and carried out of the hallway. The doors in the hallway ripped off, unable to stay bolted to their hinges, and Mario, Yoshi, and Pikachu were soon pulled out afterwards, as if being sucked up by a vaccuum cleaner.

"Fox, we have to jump out the window. The others don't have much of a chance now," Link ordered, pushing the glass window open. He jumped out, then took Samus from Fox so he could get through without falling over. Fox looked longingly back into the house, then slipped out, knowing he didn't have a choice.

Kirby heard a rustle outside and turned around. Running out the front door, he caught sight of Fox's tail and ran after him in a hurry. He knew that McCloud had Samus, and he would stop at nothing to capture them.

Link ran full throttle to a pipe outside Mario's house that the plumber used to travel around the Mushroom Kingdom. Fox followed shortly behind the Hylian, holding Samus as tightly as ever, his legs straining against a burning fatigue that was beginning to develop. Link jumped on top of the pipeand reached out to pull Fox up, when he saw Kirby dashing towards them at mach speed, already trying to inhale them.

"Hurry, get inside!" Link yelled, ducking into the pipe and out of harm's way. Fox scrambled to the top of the pipe and preceded Link by slipping into it.

Kirby growled in agony; there was no way he could mess up a second time by failing to capture everyone. However, there was no way he could fit inside the pipe. He might've been able to get through before, but with already a few people inside of him, he had too much bulk. Glaring at where Link and Fox once stood just seconds before, Kirby forced himself to turn around and go back into Mario's house.

Somehow, Mario had managed to avoid being sucked in by Kirby; DK, Yoshi, and Pikachu weren't so lucky. Mario was now hiding behind the couch that Samus had slept on the night before, clinging onto the armrest for dear life. It wasn't offering him much resistance, though, to the angry pull of wind that was now spiraling into Kirby's mouth.

"Sorry, Mario, but you won't be getting out of here tonight!" Kirby cackled, sensing the fear and subtle fury raging inside Mario. The plumber refused to give up and clung to his couch, brainstorming ways for him to escape. However, none of his ideas seemed to realistic or feasible in this situation, and unfortunately, the couch was much easier to move than he was. Kirby sucked both the couch and Mario in one gulp. The leader of the Alliance struggled to punch loose from inside Kirby, but it was hopeless.

Once Mario had been swallowed, Kirby quickly scoured the house once more, making sure there was nobody left inside. He pulled out a device that looked like a walky-talky and flipped it open.

"Bowser, I need help. A few of those guys got away. Link and Fox took Samus and went down a pipe-"

"They _WHAT? _Why didn't you chase after them, then?" Bowser seethed through the phone. "We chose you to do this mission for a reason, you know! You're the only one small enough to fit down those things!"

"I really wanted to," Kirby hastily explained, "but after I swallowed up everyone else, I was too fat to fit inside it!"

Bowser was so angry, he almost smashed the walky-talky in his fist. "Why didn't you think of that before?"

"Well, why didn't you tell me?" Kirby shot back. "You know more about the Mushroom Kingdom than I do. Why didn't you tell me that the sewer pipes around here weren't normal?"

Bowser slapped a clawed hand to his forehead. "Look, just forget it. You can go back to find the rest of those fools tomorrow. By now, they're probably hiding in the city somewhere," he offered. "The only problem is that there might be witnesses, but they are to be terminated by orders. You'd better not fail again!"

"I won't," Kirby said sourly, then shut the walky-talky closed. He walked away from Mario's house back to the Legion's hideout, knowing that he had failed terribly in everyone's eyes. He had only managed to capture four of the seven Alliance members. But there was nothing he could do for now, even if the Legion would be terribly displeased.

_'I'll come back tomorrow extra early to search the kingdom,'_ he thought to himself. That seemed to make him feel a little more confident for the time being, but he knew when he got back home, there'd be hell to pay.

But things could have gone worse. None of the heroes could have been captured at all...

* * *

(A/N) You know, this has probably been one of my favorite chapters so far, even if it's short. What did you guys think?

References:

- This chapter 's title is called 'The Pink Slip' because it's a term that refers to being fired. I think it fits Kirby pretty well, because not only is he pink, but he also got 'fired' from the Alliance. =P

- Kirby uses the same 'walky-talky device' in Kirby and the Amazing Mirror.


	11. Chapter 11

(A/N) Sorry about how long it took for me to update this story. As you can see, this chapter's kind of short because it's more of a filler. What can I say? I'm a senior in high school who has a lot of work to do and college aps to take care of.

Thanks goes to last chapter's reviewers- Nianque, doggiefan, Foxpilot, and Kattheamazing!

* * *

.:Chapter 11: Hungry? Why Wait?:.

-oOo-

"GWAHAHA! Oh, this is excellent!" Bowser was chuckling so hard that he collapsed onto the floor. K. Rool was laughing right next to him; to see their worst enemies in such a hopeless situation was a beautiful thing.

Kirby was looking rather pleased with himself, too. Although Ganondorf, Ridley, and Andross were furious, King Dedede had reminded them that their foes would be here soon enough. After all, he would capture them himself if Kirby ever failed, since he had the power to inhale his enemies as well.

Mario flicked a fireball at Bowser while he was laughing, but Kamek quickly got in front of him and launched a spell at his nose, which froze the valiant leader's entire face in a block of ice.

"Ehehehe! Looks like you need to _chill out!_" Kamek cackled. Everyone slapped their forehead and groaned; bad guys really _did_ have a lame sense of humor. Mewtwo then cast a psychic forcefield around everyone's cell to prevent them from trying to fight back.

"Here's my plan, guys," Kirby proclaimed. "Tomorrow morning, Ridley and I are going to search all over the Mushroom Kingdom and find those miserable creeps. Then I'm gonna eat the biggest pancake stack I can find, because...I haven't eaten in days!" he grumbled. Ganondorf nodded his head and looked at Bowser to see if he approved.

"Sounds good to me," Bowser snickered, looking over at Yoshi. Just as he suspected, the poor dinosaur's stomach was starting to growl at the mention of the stack of pancakes. Yoshi tried to chew off the bars that surrounded his cell, but it only put a metallic taste in his mouth. Donkey Kong glared at their captors and rocked back on his heels, while Pikachu merely hung its head.

"So, what are you going to do when you get yours, Andross?" Ganondorf asked, trying to strike up a conversation.

"Well, I suppose I'd torture him, shatter his resistance, try to sell him out to his teammates, repeat steps one through three..." Andross began. The rest of the legion members sighed; asking Andross about his plans usually took about a half hour at the least.

Meanwhile, Mario was looking hopelessly around at his surroundings. He silently wished that he could have been stronger and faster so that he could've defeated Kirby. He was also feeling guilty because he relied so much on Fox to take care of Samus, and now they were both lost with Link, who was probably in the best condition.

"Do you-a think there's-a any way we can-a get out of here?" Mario asked his teammates. After yesterday's events, he wasn't feeling too confident in himself anymore.

Yoshi shrugged and kept on trying to chew on the cell bars, while Pikachu just sighed and frowned. ("I don't think so...") it said solemnly, shaking its head.

"You're always so negative," DK grumbled. "One thing's for sure, though- we're gonna have to do everything we can to get out of this one."

-oOo-

The next morning, Link woke up from his slumber in a tree. He yawned and sat in silence for a few minutes, trying to recall the events from the night before.

He and Fox had rescued Samus, traveled through a warp pipe, and ended up in the middle of the Mushroom Kingdom. After that, they walked for a few hours until they made it to the outskirts of the city, where they decided to climb up a tree for the night. It seemed like a silly idea, but it was the only place they could hide in an otherwise open field.

Fox was still asleep, his arms wrapped around Samus like a child would hold their favorite toy. Link couldn't blame him for being so protective of her; after all, she was still unconscious from what had happened yesterday.

Nightmares had also plagued Link last night; mainly, they were about what Ganondorf would do to him and Zelda if he was captured. He also had a brief dream of what would happen to Fox and Samus if Andross and Ridley found them, which wasn't too pleasant. It wasn't really the dreams that bothered him- rather, it was because the screaming of his friends sounded so real.

"Fox, get up," Link whispered, realizing that the sun was rising. "We have to do something about Kirby. I think it's safe for us to travel now."

"...Huh? Oh, hey Link," Fox yawned as he gradually woke up. Holding Samus closely to him, he slunk down to the bottom of the tree, where Link had already been waiting for him. Fox put down Samus briefly to stretch his arms. "So, where are we going to go from here?"

But Link didn't answer- he was too busy staring at something behind Fox. "What's wrong?" McCloud asked. Unfortunately, he didn't turn around fast enough to see a gigantic, familiar space dragon charge head-first into the tree, nearly knocking it down.

"FOX!" Link shouted in alarm. The Vulpian had found himself elevated into the air, clasped in the grip of Ridley. "Don't wait for me! Take Samus and go!" Fox shouted.

The Hylian picked up Samus off the ground and ran towards the city, knowing with a heavy heart that Fox may have just given his life to save them. He closed his eyes and forced himself from trying to look behind him, but he didn't get very far before colliding with something soft and pink.

"Sorry, Link, but that's the wrong way out!" a voice cackled. Link forced himself to open his eyes and was met face-to-mouth with Kirby. Not knowing where to escape, Link was inhaled rather easily. He thrashed and kicked from inside of Kirby, not wanting to accept the fact that he was caught.

_"Here. Take this furball too," _Ridley snickered as he threw Fox's limp form inside Kirby's maw. The two of them grinned in success. "Well, that's all of them," Kirby laughed. "I can't wait to see what my reward will be!"

And with that, the two of them flew back to Bowser's (new) Castle, barely able to contain their joy.

-oOo-

"I suppose you got the job done, huh, Kirby?" Bowser smirked, taking in the sight of Kirby's joyful expression. The chubby pink blob didn't have to say anything; he just opened his mouth and spit out Link, Fox, and Samus all at once. All three of them were soaked with drool, but that didn't stop Link from jumping to his feet, prepared to strike Kirby down with his sword. Before he could attempt to do anything, though, Ganondorf ordered two Moblins to tackle him to the ground.

Panicking, Fox tried to grab Samus, who was still in her Maru Mari form, but Ridley got to her first. McCloud was then pulled aside and tied up by a few Koopatrols.

_"If Mother Brain was still alive, I'd definitely get a raise for this!" _Ridley chuckled, tossing Samus up and down before throwing her over to a Moblin.

Bowser really had to laugh now. Here were his worst enemies, and they had all been beaten by a pink blob only eight inches tall! What was even funnier was the look of despair that had thrown itself onto everyone's faces, especially Mario's.

Ganondorf made a quick signal to his Moblins, and they hauled the three victims off to the prison cells downstairs, where they were reunited with the other four Alliance members. Donkey Kong, who saw an opportunity to escape, reached out to hold the door before it slammed behind the guards, but he was electrocuted by an invisible force field.

The rest of his teammates grumbled and wallowed in their misery, trying to come up with another way to escape. A few minutes of awkward silence passed. ("See? I knew this was going to happen,") Pikachu groaned. ("This is turning out just like the situation we had only a month ago.")

("Aww, come on, Pikachu. Don't give up yet. We'll find a way out, just like we did last time!") Yoshi said cheerfully. But no one heard him mutter to himself, ("I hope...")

"Well, I guess we can wake up Samus now," Fox said weakly. He pressed a button on Samus' morph ball, and she immediately went back to her human-shaped form. Pikachu then lightly shook her awake, and Samus eventually opened her eyes. "Woah...that was a long nap..." she yawned while rubbing her neck. When she saw the nervous looks on everyone's faces, though, she frowned. "What's wrong? What happened?"

"Hey, Samus," Fox said with a sheepish grin. He wasn't sure how she would take the bad news. "Um...you got knocked unconscious yesterday, so I took care of you while you were out. Then Kirby came during the night, and he got everyone except for me, you, and Link." He stopped to clear his throat, knowing that Samus would be angry at him for saying what happened next. "Then...Ridley caught us this morning, and now we're in the basement at Bowser's Castle. In other words...we've been beaten again."

* * *

(A/N) Eh...I didn't like this chapter too much. I might come back to this later and make some changes to it, but this is pretty much how long it's gonna be. I wish it wasn't so short, but I want to save all the good parts for the later chapters.

Reference:

- When Kirby sucks up Link in this chapter, it's similar to the way the Anti-Kirbys from Link's Awakening try to eat Link. These enemies are based on Kirby and only appear in Eagle's Tower, along with Goombas.


	12. Chapter 12

(A/N) Finally, after such a long time, the epic battle of part 2 has finally arrived! I think this is my favorite chapter so far. Not only is there going to be action, but we're also gonna learn something new about Pikachu!

Thanks goes to last chapter's reviewers- Foxpilot, Pikachu127, and the new guy, Star Gamer! Thanks to you, this story has passed the 50-review mark. I never thought this fic would be that successful. You guys are my inspiration for getting this far!

* * *

.:Chapter 12: The Black Hole:.

-oOo-

A few hours later, Kirby had been sent down to the basement to make sure none of his victims had escaped. He heard them arguing about something, Samus' strong voice echoing above everyone else's. Wanting to eavesdrop on their little conversation, Kirby hid behind a wall and listened in:

"You could've been more prepared, guys. I mean, you should've at least expected _something..._" Samus snapped, throwing Fox a cold look. "And I'm rather disappointed in you, Fox. You were supposed to protect me, and a day later, we're in jail!"

"Calm down, Samus," DK sighed. "At least he kept you alive. And how was he supposed to protect you all this time if you can't even protect yourself? Think about it. At least we all survived!"

Samus wanted to argue back, but she knew that there was no need to waste her energy on a petty argument. "Hmm...well, I guess it can't be helped. Things could've gone worse, that's for sure. Sorry..." she apologized half-heartedly.

"We-a shouldn't be-a worried about this-a right now," Mario reasoned. "Right now, we need to-a think of a way to escape." The others gathered into a circle and started to discuss their ideas when they were interrupted by someone giggling in the hallway.

Kirby drew out of the shadows and stepped out in the open. Yoshi and DK started growling immediately, angry that Kirby would dare to show his face after what he'd done. Pikachu dashed over to Samus' side and barked out a couple words of its own.

("I can't believe you turned on us like that, you traitor! Wait 'til I get my hands on you!") Pikachu had no want to see Kirby after what he did to Samus. Its tail swept around in an impatient fashion, ears twitching with rage.

"Same to you, rat!" Kirby scowled. "I just wanted to check on the Fail-liance down here. Tell me, how does it feel to be betrayed?"

Samus shot Kirby a look that could've pierced a hole through a rock. He ignored the threatening glance and crossed his stubby arms, glancing around at everyone else to see who else wanted to challenge him.

"Why are you here?" DK snarled. "Haven't you already had your little thrill?"

Kirby closed his eyes and repeated DK's words in a mocking tone. "Not yet. I need to prove something once and for all - that I am superior to all of you!" he replied heatedly. "Ganondorf and Andross mocked me because I let someone as weak as Link and McCloud get away from me, so I'm going to beat you all unconscious to prove my strength. Then, I will officially be inducted into the Legion of Doom!"

"Strength and power are not all that matters," Link stated calmly. The others nodded in agreement as Kirby burned with rage, wanting to snap their backs like twigs in the wind. "And you are confusing courage with wisdom, fool!" Kirby shouted back.

Mario jumped to his feet, his anger having reached a certain point. Fox tried to pull him back, but he didn't have the strength or energy to do so. "Fine-a! We will-a fight! We'll-a wipe the floor with you!"

Samus nodded and stood up next to him. Yoshi and Pikachu had to agree too; taking abuse from a pink marshmallow was embarrassing. Donkey Kong also pounced on the idea for a fight, but Link and Fox were unsure if this was the right thing to do. Nevertheless, they agreed to fight Kirby, because they'd have to work as a team to win.

"Great. See you at seven," Kirby cackled before running off to prepare himself. _'Only one side is coming out alive,'_ he thought,_ 'and that's going to be me.'_

-oOo-

After Kirby had left them to sit in silence for a few more hours, the seven heroes sat in darkness once more, whispering amongst themselves. They didn't know whether to escape while they had the chance, or wait it out and beat Kirby at his own game. No matter what they did, the stakes were high.

"I don't know...are you sure that was a good idea? You know, challenging him like that?" Fox asked fearfully.

"Doesn't matter. He was going to try to beat us unconscious anyway, whether we agreed to it or not," Samus huffed, crossing her arms. She wasn't in the best of moods, mostly because she was still in pain from being paralyzed and curled up into a ball for an entire day.

Yoshi's stomach then started to growl. ("Uh, guys? I'm literally starving to death over here. I haven't eaten in over a day!")

"He's-a right," Mario sighed. "We-a never did get to-a eat our pasta...which means we haven't-a eaten since I invited you all to my house-a for the reunion party." He sighed, wondering why such a wonderful occasion had to be ruined by one of their former friends.

"Do we have any food left here?" Link asked. "I have water, but we're not going to survive that long if we fight with empty stomachs."

"Well-a, I do have a few mushrooms from-a yesterday," Mario suggested. "I was-a going to-a cut them up and-a put them in my pasta, but after Kirby-a knocked out Samus, I didn't-a think about cooking anymore." He reached into his pocked and pulled out a few mushrooms, which he then distributed to everyone. Link then passed around a canteen of water, making sure that everyone got a drink. For the time being, their stomachs were satiated.

"That's better. Now all we need is a plan to beat Kirby," DK said. "Anybody have an idea?"

Pikachu raised its paw. ("I'm sure that if we just attack him before he inhales us, we might be able to paralyze him. It would be the perfect payback for what he did to Samus,") it suggested. ("After all, he can't actually _eat_ us. He has no stomach! What's he gonna do, sit on us?")

("Careful, Pika! Don't say things like that! You might tempt him!") Yoshi joked. ("By the way, I still think I have a bigger appetite than he does.")

("I agree,") Pikachu smiled. ("You also have a decent personality, too. I've never met a vegetarian dinosaur before!")

("Thanks, Pikachu!") Yoshi grinned. ("See, DK? Pikachu's not negative. She's pretty good at giving compliments!")

"Let's just hope she can-a keep that positive attitude for the fight," Mario said. "We're-a gonna have to give it our best-a shot if we want to-a get out of here in one piece."

-oOo-

Bowser was more than pleased to see Kirby want to prove himself so much. At first, some of them were a little wary about letting Kirby fight against all seven of the Alliance members, but that was mainly because they wanted to kill them instead. So, to satisfy everyone, Kirby changed up the rules a bit - instead of killing them, Kirby would just beat up the heroes, weakening them so that they wouldn't be able to fight later.

Right now, Bowser, K. Rool, Ganondorf, Ridley, Kamek, King Dedede, Andross, and Mewtwo were standing on an balcony over the heroes' jail cell, waiting for their match against Kirby to begin.

"I wonder what the chances are of Kirby winning against those flea-bags is," K. Rool laughed, throwing popcorn into his mouth.

"Approximately seven-hundred million, six-hundred fifty-five thousand, three-hundred twenty to one," Andross replied. K. Rool's normal eye bugged out. "It means they don't have a chance," the simian genius explained.

Ridley nodded his head thoughtfully and perched on the balcony's edge, wondering if Andross' superior intelligence could possibly be wrong.

Meanwhile, in the jail cell below, Link and his friends were sitting in a circle as if they were meditating. Link always performed these rituals before a big fight because they gave him a sense of freedom and encouraged him to be fearless.

Once Kirby's footsteps could be heard, Mario stood up and smiled. "Let's-a go get him," he cheered, snapping everyone out of the trance they were in. They all jumped up at the same time and faced their enemy's direction, eager to get this fight over with as soon as possible.

Kirby had entered their cell and was sitting in the corner with a bag of food. He was eating a lot- some of the things he had were just snacks, but he had also brought a bag of marshmallows along with him. The Alliance members looked at him strangely, wondering what he was planning.

"I'm going to make this as bad for you as possible," Kirby explained, shoving a bag of marshmallows down his throat. Fox's ears went up, as if he had just heard the sound of a plan. Mario noticed this and gave him a sideways glance. "Fox, whatever you-a plan on doing, please don't-a kill yourself," he whispered.

("Would you just fight us already? I'm starting to get hungry over here!") Yoshi yelled, wanting to start the battle. Kirby stuffed one last marshmallow in his mouth, then hollered up at Mewtwo to officially start the fight. The psychic Pokemon responded by casting a forcefield around the prison so that no one could escape.

"Just get in there and fight, already!" Ganondorf shouted. Kirby smirked and jumped up into the air, landing on the ground with an The seven Alliance members were knocked off their feet, just where Kirby wanted them. He inhaled a tornado of air, trying to suck them all in; everyone ran away from him except Fox, who let himself be pulled into Kirby's maw.

"Yes!" a triumphant yell called from above the arena. It was Andross, and he was so ecstatic with happiness that he hugged Ridley. Samus rolled her eyes at this.

Mario looked at where Fox once stood and shook his head. "I-a hope he knows what he's-a doing," the plumber muttered to himself. Yoshi began to slip next to him, and Mario grabbed him by the tongue to prevent him from being eaten.

Link was struggling to equip his iron boots. If he could put them on, he knew that he'd be immune to any wind attack. Kirby predicted this and briefly closed his mouth before tackling Link to the ground, smothering him momentarily. The Hero of Time pushed himself out from underneath Kirby's bulk, then kicked him back towards the other end of the arena.

Kirby growled and forced himself to stand up again. The closest person to him was Samus, so he inflated himself and body-slammed her. The bounty hunter nearly screamed in pain; her body was starting to hurt again from when Kirby had paralyzed her. She pulled herself away from him and gasped, trying to catch her breath.

("Hey! Why don't you pick on someone your own size?") Pikachu snapped. She zipped around Kirby a few times before running into him with an electricity-charged tackle. The pink blob tried to roll over the little Pokemon, but Pikachu was much too fast for that to happen.

Suddenly a strange fire began to form around Kirby, causing Pikachu to grab her tail and run away in fear of getting burnt. Even DK was scared; Kirby couldn't naturally learn fire attacks, so what on earth was going on?

Mario's eyebrows shot up when he figured it out. Fox was still alive inside Kirby, and he was using some sort of fire attack to protect himself. And then it all clicked.

Kirby had eaten a lot of marshmallows before the fight because he wanted to trap his competitors in the goop, rendering them helpless. But marshmallows will expand when exposed to heat- and Fox had a jetpack that was nicknamed the Fire Fox. Using this, Fox planned on causing the marshmallows inside Kirby to explode, killing him.

"Fire! Use-a fire!" Mario called out to his teammates, throwing fireballs in Kirby's mouth as if he were a pitcher in a baseball game. As the plumber predicted, Kirby started to inflate little by little, making it harder for him to move.

Link reached for his fire arrows and launched three of them at once. Samus unclipped her arm cannon, then gave it to Pikachu to use as a flamethrower. The mouse accidentally burned herself, though, and ended up throwing the whole thing, still activated, into the growing pink blob's mouth.

"I gotta get down there!" Bowser yelped, his knuckles turning white from clinging onto the balcony's railing. "I can't let him be defeated by those scumballs!"

_"No! We've got to stay here!"_ Ridley shrieked. _"Your fire will only help them, and you might end up murdering Kirby yourself!"_

Grudgingly, Bowser settled back down in his seat. He didn't like having Kirby be used as live bait, but it would probably have to happen. Either way, he wasn't planning on letting The Alliance members get away with it.

"Andross, engage that water pump when Kirby dies...if he does. That way, they'll have to float home!" Bowser grinned evilly. "Little fools aren't getting away this time!"

* * *

(A/N) So, it turns out that Pikachu (at least, in this story) is a girl. I think a few of you might have already known that, though.

References:

- When Pikachu says, "What's he gonna do, sit on us?" and Yoshi replies, "You might tempt him!", this was the direct dialogue from a scene in Kung Fu Panda. Remember when Tai-Lung first sees Po? He teases him by saying, "What are you gonna do, sit on me?" and Po replies, "Don't tempt me." Hehe.


	13. Chapter 13

(A/N) Hey everyone! We're down to the last two chapters of part 2!

However, I'm sorry to say that this will be another short chapter. I saved all the action for this one, but it doesn't seem long enough to me. If you decide to review this chapter, tell me what you think. Was it too short? Was it as epic as part 1's final battle?

Thanks goes to last chapter's reviewers, Foxpilot, Stargamer, and Andrea! To answer yor question, Luigi doesn't have an accent because I wanted the readers to tell the difference between Mario and Luigi's speaking. _____________

* * *

_

.:Chapter 13: Bandages:.

-oOo-

Fox struggled to free himself from the growing marshmallow mess, but he knew he wouldn't be getting anywhere anytime soon. He knew this was going to happen, but he never thought it would get this bad. The marshmallows clung onto his body like leeches, and since they were melted now, they pulled Fox in like quicksand.

"Link, I wish you were here," Fox groaned, "but at the same time, I'm kind of glad you're not." The Vulpian tried to claw his way towards Kirby's mouth, but the goop just kept pulling him backwards within the walls of Kirby's stomach. Fox knew that he had to destroy Kirby from the inside because he was stuck, so he fired his jetpack up one more time to let the flames keep him afloat to avoid from being digested.

Outside the battlefield, Andross contemplated whether to break the water pipes now or to wait a little longer. The other Legion members had all left, so it was up to him to break the water valve loose. He looked back down at the brawl taking place and noticed that Kirby was now too large to escape. It was now or never.

"Oh, moronic dumb-bells, I'm afraid this where your adventure ends. Toodles!" Andross called out before smashing the pipes open. Mario looked up just in time to see a torrent of water cascading down from above, forming a pool at his feet.

Kirby knew that the Legion had given up on him. He knew that he couldn't possibly save himself now, but that wouldn't keep him from bringing down one of the Alliance members with him. "Well, it looks like I may not be getting out of here alive," he sneered, "but neither will fantastic Mr. Fox."

"Kirby, if you spit him back out, you'll be small enough to escape. Don't be foolish enough to kill yourself!" DK bargained. But Kirby only shook his head and stuck out his tongue.

"It's not that I want to die," he snapped. "It's because I have something valuable of yours, and you'll have to defeat me if you want him back!"

Samus' eyes burned with rage; water was beginning to slosh around her heels, her body hurt like hell, and now the only one who bothered to protect her needed her help. She wasn't going to quit now.

So she began to holler at Kirby, her anger finally spilling over. A lot of the things she said were expletive, and Kirby did wince at all of it. Finally, Link realized that she was making a distraction and knew what he had to do next.

The Hero of Time drew his Master Sword and charged full-speed at Kirby. The hapless pink puff had no idea what he had planned, but he did know that he would have to run. Unfortunately, it was too late for him to roll away.

Link jumped up and was about to slash Kirby in half until a shrill voice called out, stopping Link in mid-air and causing him to land on the ground with a thud. _'Noooooo! Stop! I give up!'_ the voice shrieked, causing everyone else to scramble away in fear.

Link was backing up against the wall, unable to believe what he had just heard. "Fox, is that you?" he asked worriedly. "Are you doing alright in there?"

"That's definitely not Fox," Samus corrected. "But...I think it may have been Kirby..."

("I don't know about that...") Yoshi whispered nervously. ("Kirby didn't even move his mouth! It must've been something inside of him!")

("Well, whatever that thing was,") Pikachu commented, ("it sounded like a deranged animal! That just can't be normal...can it?")

And then, as if to answer everyone's unspoken questions, a cloud of pure darkness crawled out of Kirby's mouth and hovered into the air. A single, red eye opened in the midst of it, peering down at the group with intense hatred. Mario shuddered; the creature's intense stare made him feel as if he were dealing with a divine, angry spirit.

_'I've had enough!_' the being growled, furious about having to expose himself in front of his enemies. _'Take that pathetic creature of yours...but I will return! Oh yes, I will return!' _And with that, Dark Matter closed his eye and rose high into the air before exitting through the ceiling. Kirby was finally free of his control.

After a few moments of silence, Mario volunteered to see if Kirby was okay, but he quickle regretted it as the giant blob opened his mouth and exhaled everything that was in his body, including Fox. He then returned back to his normal size and fell over sideways. DK walked over to Kirby and picked him up, carefully checking his condition. "He's unconscious," he confirmed. "Whatever that thing was, it must've been controlling Kirby this whole time."

"My...gosh-a..." Mario muttered. Link didn't say anything as he put away his sword and summoned his two fairies, Navi and Tatl. They lit up the darkening room and helped everyone to find Fox, who was still hidden underneath a good two pounds of goop. His ears perked up at the sound of Link's scurrying, and he nearly shouted with relief.

"Hey. How's your day been?" Link joked. The humorous moment was cut short, however, when Fox looked down and realized that they were nearly knee-deep in water. Since Yoshi and Pikachu were short, they had to climb on DK's back to avoid getting swept away in the current of water that was beginning to form.

"Where's the exit?" the gorilla gasped. Holding Kirby and having two other creatures on his back prevented him from standing up on two legs, so he was starting to get worried.

"I've got one," Link replied, pulling out Farore's Wind, a mystical object that could warp someone - or a group of people - to another place. He summoned up its power and charted a course for Donkey Kong Island. A green mist unfolded around the eight of them, consuming them all at once before sending them off to the lovely jungle island.

_'We may have won that battle,'_ Mario thought, _'but we might have also lost a valuable friend.'_

-oOo-

Back at home on his island, Donkey Kong was treating his guests to banana milkshakes. It had been hours since that horrific fight took place, and all of them just wanted to relax and let their problems go for a while.

"Link, thanks for saving me back there. I owe you one," Fox said as he took another sip of his milkshake. "If it wasn't for you, nobody could've helped me out of there."

"Not to-a mention that he-a saved us from-a drowning," Mario stated, shuddering at the thought of what would've happened if Link didn't have Farore's Wind. "I just wish-a I knew where Bowser and his friends-a went off too."

"Guys, it was nothing. It's what I do," Link quipped, then swallowed another gulp of his drink. "Right now, let's try not to think about what _would_ have happened. We're alive now, and that's all that matters."

Meanwhile, Yoshi was staring at Link's milkshake and tried to steal it, having already finished his own. The Hylian was too fast for him, though, and caught the dinosaur's pink tongue mid-swipe. He gave it back to its owner with a chuckle.

Samus was absorbing the warmth of the morning sun. She and the others had slept out on DK's porch last night because they loved the sounds of the crashing waves; it helped them to relax and forget their troubles, if only for a little while. Pikachu was curled up next to her, still sleeping.

"I think we're-a doing real well with each other," Mario said, breaking the silence. "We really showed a lot of-a teamwork back there."

"Sure, if taking a trip through a marshmallow blender of death is considered good," Fox joked, then laid back in the porch chair he was sitting in. The sea breeze really did feel nice, and taking another nap sounded like a good idea to Fox.

("I'm getting kind of sleepy again, too,") Yoshi yawned, then stretched out on the porch floor. Everyone was still a little exhausted from the battle, since they only got a few hours of sleep. Slowly, one by one, they dozed off once again, not yet ready for the day to come.

* * *

(A/N) And so ends the final battle of part 2. Don't worry, guys- despite what Mario said about 'losing a valuable friend,' Kirby isn't dead. Mario's just afraid that Kirby might go back to hating them again once he knows that they had to beat him up like that.

Next chapter, Kirby's going to wake up. I wonder what will happen? :P

References:

- When Kirby said "Well, it looks like I may not be getting out of here alive, but neither will fantastic Mr. Fox." Heh...this was a funny little reference to the movie, Fantastic Mr. Fox.


	14. Chapter 14

(A/N) After six months, I finally updated! I'm SO sorry for the wait, everyone...I was really busy during senior year, and to be honest, I had writer's block and didn't know how to end Part 2. Lucky for you guys, I have a lot planned out for Part 3, but I just didn't know what to put in this chapter. As a result, it might be short.

Fear not, I will never give up on this fic until it's finished! As for _The Mouse and The Dinosaur_...I'll probably pick that back up when I'm done with this story. Maybe.

And with that, I give a long overdue thank-you to last chapters reviewers: Foxpilot and Star Gamer!

* * *

.:Chapter 14: Recovery:.

-oOo-

Early the next morning, Mario and his friends were sitting on DK's front verandah, drinking yet even more banana milkshakes. They had been there since the night before, wanting to relax and ease the pains from the previous battle they were in. Well, almost everyone; Fox was too busy trying to contact his teammates to settle down.

Yoshi moved the straw around in his milkshake, wondering what to do with it. He stuck it up his nose and snorted, trying to drink from it. He had never had to use a straw before in his life, so he had no idea how it worked.

"Yoshi, gross. You put it in your mouth, silly," Samus proclaimed. Pikachu looked over at Yoshi in curiosity; she had never used a straw before, either.

Yoshi looked at the straw for a moment, then tried drinking through it the 'normal' way. He found it to work much better, but he sucked on it too hard, and the straw flew to the back of his throat.

Mario gasped and put his hand in Yoshi's mouth, pulling the straw back out. The dinosaur squealed in relief, then went back to inhaling his treat. Mario shook his head and threw the straw away. "Next time-a, you won't be using a straw," he sighed, then went back to sit in his lounge chair.

The calm mood was quickly shattered, however, when Diddy Kong and his friends arrived, tearing up the porch as they did. Pikachu jumped up in alarm and ran back to Samus' lap, afraid her tail would be stepped on.

DK grumbled as he woke up, his peaceful nap interrupted. "Oh, great. It's you guys again," he sighed in exhaustion.

"Uncle DK, can you come play a game with us? Please, please, please?" Diddy begged his uncle, not able to stand still. DK couldn't help but laugh as he got up from his lounge chair, tousling his nephew's hair. He was about to leave with Diddy and his friends when suddenly Link came running out of DK's hut. "Kirby's awake," he breathed.

At that point, everyone seemed to immediately stop what they were doing. Mario's face paled, while Samus put her drink aside and stared at DK disbelievingly. Yoshi and Pikachu had their mouths hanging open in shock, while Fox put down his contact device for the first time that day.

DK quietly motioned Diddy and his friends to wait for him outside, then waved his guests to follow him into the house, where Kirby had been sleeping since the night before.

"I don't-a know what to-a say," Mario whispered to Samus. "I'm not-a sure how he'll react upon-a seeing us after we-a pulverized him."

-oOo-

"Andross, are you done in there yet?" Bowser yelled. Both Ganondorf and Andross were taking forever to create yet another magic potion in the Legion's laboratory, this one intended to do something that neither of them had yet revealed.

But no matter what it did, Bowser had little patience for any of it. He always wanted things done fast, because the faster they were done, the faster he would be able to smash Mario's face in.

Mario, the leader of The Alliance, was everything Bowser hated: good, kind, caring, and helpful. It made him want to vomit every time he thought about it. And now that Mario had six friends on his side, he became even more respected. In Bowser's eyes, it was sickening.

Luckily for The Legion, however, Bowser had enlisted the help of Dark Matter to brainwash Kirby's mind in order to work on their side. For once, the odds were in their favor: nine of them versus only seven of The Alliance members. What Bowser didn't acknowledge was the fact that they coordinated so well together; for example, with Mario's firepower and Link's Master Sword, the fiends had practically destroyed Kirby from the inside out. If Link hadn't tried to slice Kirby open, Dark Matter wouldn't have ran away, and Fox McCloud would've been dead. They would've had one less problem to worry about. And that was what made Bowser especially sick: helping others.

They still had King Dedede, but without Dark Matter, they wouldn't be able to mind control any of Mario's friends to turn against him again. But none of it mattered; Bowser knew his day of revenge would come soon enough. So the question was not _if_, but _when_. Mario would be defeated if it was the last thing he'd do! Even if he was on his dying breath, he'd see to it that Mario was killed.

"Just about, oh hasty one," Ganondorf chuckled. Some sort of animal growled from within the laboratory, and Bowser began to have second thoughts about what they were planning. Something strange was definitely going on in there.

Suddenly, the doors burst open, and Andross floated out, holding a beaker filled with glowing green liquid. Ganondorf soon appeared behind him, and what appeared behind him shocked Bowser and the rest of The Legion of Doom.

A purple Yoshi-like creature walked out of the laboratory, chewing on a bone. He had a red, spiked collar around his neck, and his teeth were razor-sharp, unlike the teeth of other Yoshis.

"Ganondorf, who is this menacing creature here?" Bowser asked with mild curiosity. He didn't trust Yoshis, but this one seemed to have an intimidating aura about him. The Yoshi had a pair of _shades_ on, for crying out loud!

"He says his name is Boshi. He's been wanting to take revenge on Yoshi, ever since Yoshi beat him in a race on Yo'ster Island a few years ago."

"So what can he do?" Bowser continued, wanting to know more about this animal. It was odd; while normal Yoshis had three spikes on their backs, this one only had a single, large spike. Not to mention that it wore sandals instead of boots. Was it simply a Yoshi who wanted to rebel? Or was it a different species entirely? No one knew.

"He makes eggs, like any regular Yoshi can, but with a twist," Ganondorf answered. He then gestured towards Andross, who gave the potion they made to Boshi. The cruel-looking dinosaur instinctively drank it down and made a face.

"With that potion, he'll be able to swallow Mario and his friends, while making replicas of them at the same time. These clones will be born evil. Quite nice, right?" Andross smiled, satisfied with his idea.

"Let me guess, a new capture plan?" Bowser chortled.

"Bingo," Ganondorf smirked.

-oOo-

Once inside his hut, DK closed the door behind him, making sure that Diddy wouldn't eavesdrop. He still didn't want his nephew to know how much danger he'd been involved in last night, or how he almost drowned.

Across the room, Kirby was sitting on DK's hammock, the covers thrown on the floor. "Woah...what happened?" he whispered to the seven intruders, holding his head in agony. "I'm in so much pain right now...this headache is killing me!"

"Good morning, Kirby," Mario sighed. "I can explain-a what happened to you, but you have to-a promise me that you-a won't be mad at us." For the first time, everyone felt guilty for what they did to Kirby - even if he had been possessed during the whole thing.

"Mad at you?" Kirby asked, clearly confused. "Why, what happened? What did you guys do? The last thing I remember is..." he trailed off, trying to visualize the last thing he remembered doing. "I saw Dark Matter...oh, no..."

"He took over your mind," Link replied. "I think you can figure out the rest." Everyone else nodded, not knowing what to add to that. They merely gave Kirby sympathetic looks, hoping that he wouldn't flip out on them.

"Don't even bother explaining, guys," Kirby said. "I can imagine what happened after that. All I can do now is apologize for whatever I did. I wasn't in my right frame of mind..."

("It's alright, buddy,") Yoshi smiled weakly. ("You're back on our side now, and that's all that matters.")

("Just promise us you'll never try to eat us, and we'll be on good terms again,") Pikachu smirked.

Samus cocked her head, wondering whether or not she should forgive Kirby for almost smothering Fox and attempting to drown them. Then she shrugged. "So, now that we're all together again, what happens next? Where do we go from here?"

Before anyone could answer that, the silence was broken once again as Diddy pounded down the door with impatience. "Uncle DK, we're tired of waiting! Can you come outside now and play with us? _Please?_" he complained, emphazing the last word.

DK slapped his head. "Alright, fine." He turned to Mario and the rest of the gang. "Can you watch Kirby while I'm gone? I promise it won't be for too long."

But Mario just chuckled. "It's-a fine. You look like you need a break after all this-a tension. Go-a have fun!" No sooner had he finished the sentence then Diddy literally dragged his uncle outside.

"Don't steal my chair, okay guys?" DK called over his shoulder before running into the jungle after his nephew. Yoshi, of course, had no shame in taking his spot. Link caught him doing this and rolled his eyes, leaning back in his own chair and taking his hat off to play with Navi and Tatl.

* * *

(A/N) Well, guys, it's safe to say that Kirby's back on the good side! There will also be at least two new characters in Part 3 - one will join The Alliance, and the other will join The Legion. Can you guess who?

References:

- Boshi comes from the game Super Mario RPG, where Mario and Yoshi had to beat him in a race over cookies. At the end of the game, he's seen with another enemy (Croco), and the two become friends. I think everyone assumed that Boshi turned good after that, but in this story, he's not!


	15. Chapter 15

(A/N) That's right, I already finished Chapter 15! Just for the record, guys, I think this story will have a total of 20 chapters- that means only five left! Can you believe it? So right now, I'm 75% finished. Took long enough, huh?

Thanks goes to last chapter's reviewers, Pikachu127 and Star Gamer, for not forgetting about me or this story. :) I less than three you guys.

* * *

**Part 3: The Rebirth**

.:Chapter 15: Birthrights:.

-oOo-

"You'd better be smarter than that green pile of puke we call Yoshi," a sharp voice sneered at Boshi. The menacing dinosaur snarled back, trying to look tougher than he actually was. He couldn't wait to get out there and prove to his teammate how useful he could be. The speaker shook his head, then began to search the scene for a potential victim. Soon, one of them would surely come...he could _smell_ them.

Sure enough, DK appeared out of the brush to their right. The tie-wearing ape didn't see them hiding in the foliage; he was too busy playing with

Boshi's companion felt a smirk creep onto his face, then leaped out of the bush to attack. DK felt the figure strike him down from behind. He struggled to fight back, but a sharp pair of claws held him down. Boshi then stuck out his tongue and swallowed DK in one gulp, trapping him in a brown-spotted egg. He then proceeded to lay another egg, this one completely black.

DK's attacker picked himself up off the ground, then carried the two eggs to his ship. They hadn't caught all of Mario's friends, but this would have to do for now.

-oOo-

About a half hour after DK had been captured, Diddy and his friends came racing back to their uncle's hut, shouting the whole time. "He's missing! He's missing!" Diddy panicked, racing around in circles.

"Woah!" Mario gasped, Diddy having knocked him down out of desperation. The rest of the heroes took a few steps back, knowing that something had gone terribly wrong out in the jungle.

"Someone's got to go look for my uncle!" Diddy cried, his eyes begging Mario to help him. "He should've been back by now! He's _never_ this good at hiding!"

Mario had to mentally laugh at this, but Samus was starting to worry. Anyone that could take on DK would have to be brutally tough. Link was just as concerned, because he didn't want anyone from their team to get lost looking for him. And, to make matters worse, they needed someone to watch over Kirby in his weakened state...

"I'll go," Fox volunteered. "I'm good at sneaking around; if someone _did_ capture DK, I can assure you that they won't sneak up on me." Mario smiled; of course Fox would volunteer to go first. After all, he had always done the same thing with his teammates back at home. Now that he was here, Mario had always depended on him for his stealth, and that's just what they needed right now.

"Fine. Just be-a careful, Fox," the plumber nodded. "You might-a get lost in the-a jungle." Fox jumped to his feet, then climbed down the ladder to the jungle floor. Yoshi and Pikachu watched him as he left, wondering if sending him out there alone was the right thing to do.

As if he had read their minds, Link summoned one of his fairies, Navi, to accompany Fox. It would be getting dark soon, and it would be nightfall by the time Fox and DK came back, if DK would come back at all.

("I hope they'll be okay,") Pikachu moaned. She was always worrying about everyone, since she always envisioned the worst outcome in every situation.

("I hope so, too,") Yoshi sighed. ("I've been craving another one of those banana milkshakes.")

-oOo-

Boshi and his partner had found a hiding place in the jungle to stay for the night. They would wait here for a few more hours, looking out for more potential victims to pass by. Since DK was captured, his teammates would inevitably come looking for him, which meant that another opportunity - or multiple opportunities - would show themselves soon.

"Yes, K. Rool. Uh-huh. We got him. Yeah, I'll get the rest soon. Good night," a voice snapped from the other end of the K. Rool's walky-talky.

The fat Kremling was ecstatic upon hearing that the Legion's two newest recruits had captured DK first. In fact, he was so happy that he was literally rolling on the floor from laughter. Bowser was tempted to step on him.

"Oh, grow _up,_" Andross snarled. "Yes, that went pretty well and all, but what about the other seven?" he demanded impatiently. He really hoped that these two new recruits wouldn't turn out to be totally useless. Bowser, Ganondorf, Ridley, Kamek, King Dedede, and Mewtwo weren't pleased either; they had been hoping that their respectful rival would've been bagged instead.

"That new guy's just lucky he didn't kill himself," Ganondorf sneered, disappointed that Link was still out there. "I bet a Yoshi could outsmart him. It's gonna take a lot more than just one cloned hero to win me over."

"He's smarter than _you_," Bowser muttered under his breath. Then, he continued in a calm voice, "So, he got Donkey Kong. Very good. Take the egg to the Incubation Room so it can hatch as soon as possible."

Mewtwo grumbled under his breath, obviously unhappy about something. ("You fools have forgotten that the real DK is still alive. We need a way to dispose of him.")

Ridley smirked at this, rubbing his claws together. _"A grilling sounds nice, although I would only consider DK to be a decent meal. The rest of them would be mere snacks."_

His comrades nodded in hungry agreement to this - except for Bowser, surprisingly. "I think we're getting too far ahead of ourselves again," he sighed. "Remember what happened to our last two plans? If there's anything we've learned, it's not to count our Koopas before they've hatched...in this case, literally."

Floating alongside Bowser on his broomstick, Kamek looked up at the clock. It was nine o' clock now. "Perhaps now would be a good time to get some rest," he yawned, landing on the ground. Everyone else agreed to this as well, getting up from their seats.

But the King of the Koopas had so much energy coursing through his veins right now that staying awake all night would be inevitable. And when he was anxious, Bowser couldn't force himself to fall asleep, no matter how hard he tried.

"You guys can retire for the night," Bowser grumbled, walking toward the door to the hallway. Everyone waited in silence as they watched him sulk away.

"I wonder what his problem is?" King Dedede asked once Bowser was out of earshot. The others merely shook their heads at this and headed off to their rooms, hoping that the next day would be more successful.

-oOo-

Back in the jungle, Boshi heard a little rustle. He took off his shades for a moment to see in the darkness, but nothing appeared, so he just stood there and waited. His partner turned on their ship's lights, and Boshi stumbled backwards, startled by the sudden flood of light.

Further away, Fox was hiding under a bush, grateful that he wasn't visible even when there were lights around him. Navi hid behind one of his ears, scared and lonely about being separated from Link for so long. Fox lightly brushed her with his fingertips, trying to reassure her that everything would be fine.

However, his heart was pounding inside his chest like a drum, and for a moment Fox wondered if Navi could hear it, too. Fox closed his eyes, his breathing starting to stagger, and reopened them. He had to keep himself calm no matter what.

("Hey! I found one!") Boshi called out, then pounced in front of the bush that Fox was hiding under. The Vulpian was able to roll away, but his arm got scraped against the ground as he tried to escape. He knew that his arm was bleeding, but he didn't stop to look at it; he started to run as fast and far as his feet would take him.

"After him!" the one next to Boshi shrieked, then began to chase Fox as well. In a few seconds, Boshi was right at Fox's heels. But Fox didn't notice, as he was too busy looking ahead of him. He could hear Samus talking in the distance, and he knew that he would be back at DK's hut shortly. He couldn't stop now.

But his plan was ruined once Boshi had gotten the idea to stick out his tongue and use it to trip Fox. He went flying, landing face-down. He heard laughter from behind him.

"Urk..." Fox moaned, trying to lift himself back up. Now, not only was his arm bleeding more than ever, but the palms of his hands were grazed from the fall, too. He managed to get back up on two legs and made a break for it before being pushed back down again onto his back.

Fox coughed, blood sputtering out of his mouth. He looked up to see someone's boot on his stomach, which prevented him from getting back up again. He knew that escape would be impossible now.

And as if that wasn't bad enough, he knew his attacker very well. This guy needed no introduction, but he gave one anyway:

"Can't let you do that, Star Fox!"

* * *

(A/N) That's right, guys...the next new Legion member is Wolf O' Donnell! So, now there's ten of them! Even with Kirby back on their side, can the heroes win their third and final battle against Bowser?

Reference:

- "Can't let you do that, Star Fox!" For those of you that haven't played any Star Fox games, this is one of Wolf's signature quotes.


End file.
